Five Questions Over Coffee

Who is Janine?

Janine Bolon is a seasoned entrepreneur with a background in analytical biochemistry, having worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 15 years. A dynamic figure who combines her scientific acumen with a drive to teach, Janine has blended her interests in technology, business, and personal development to support others in achieving a balanced and successful life. She is the author of 20 books, a creator of 112 online courses, and hosts four podcast programs along with a radio show, all of which focus on helping people balance work, family, and creativity without succumbing to burnout.

Episode Summary:

In this enlightening episode of “Five Questions Over Coffee,” host Stuart Webb is joined by the multifaceted Janine Bolon. An entrepreneur, scientist, and educator, Janine shares her journey from the pharmaceutical industry to becoming a homeschooling advocate and business owner. Having authored numerous books and created multiple online courses, Janine reveals her secrets to maintaining a well-lived life without burning out. This episode dives deep into how established professionals can transition smoothly through major life changes using structured systems and creative insight.

Janine Bolon, struck by lightning as a child and driven by a lifelong passion for understanding systems, discusses her methodologies aimed at helping people navigate the rapid advancements of technology and personal career transitions. Throughout the discussion, she highlights the importance of building systems that allow for creativity and freedom, noting that systems create the space for creativity to thrive. Additionally, Janine offers expert advice on how to leverage existing contacts, avoid common entrepreneurial pitfalls, and maintain clarity amid major life changes. Her strategies offer listeners the opportunity to explore unconventional yet highly effective paths to personal and professional success.

Key Takeaways:

* Systemize for Success: Janine stresses the importance of creating systems to enable both business scalability and freedom for creativity.

* Clarity Over Chaos: Instead of seeking more clients, focus on clarity and effective systems to improve revenue streams and workflow.

* Avoiding Activity Traps: Busy doesn’t always mean productive; it’s crucial to differentiate between meaningful progress and mere activity.

* Perfection vs. Progress: Waiting for perfection can delay revenue generation—embrace progress instead.

* Build Authentic Relationships: Genuine and helpful interactions can often lead to significant business opportunities over time.

Notable Quotes:

* “I help you with clarity because you’ve already accomplished a lot, but now you’re trying to move forward with this knowledge.”

* “Systems create the freedom for your creativity. What kind of lifestyle are you wanting with this business?”

* “Waiting for everything to be perfect is what’s delaying your ability to bring in revenue.”

* “Every morning I wake up and I go, hot damn, I get another day.”

* “If you don’t have your polestar in alignment, you will never make where you want to go.”

Resources:

* Five Questions Over Coffee Podcast

* Janine’s Article: Available soon at free stuff link.

* Master Contact Sheet training: Exact URL pending, available through Janine’s blog.

* Contact Janine Bolon: Website

For those seeking inspiration or insights into managing transitions and cultivating creativity, this episode with Janine Bolon is a must-listen. Stay connected for more engaging and informative content from “Five Questions Over Coffee.”

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SPEAKERS

Janine Bolon, Stuart Webb

0:00:00 - (Janine Bolon): Foreign.

0:00:23 - (Stuart Webb): Hi and welcome back to five Questions over Coffee. I’m delighted. Today I’m joined by Janine Bolon. Janine, now this is a fascinating, a fascinating introduction and I’m going to just, I’m just going to have to sort of say if we get time to dive into this, I’d really love to. When Janine Boland was young, she was struck by lightning. Now that is a really interesting way to start anybody’s introduction, but she’s always loved figuring out how things work.

0:00:50 - (Stuart Webb): She was a scientist. She’s a scientist to a core. And she has dug into the mysteries of life and tried to understand why things are the way. I understand absolutely where she’s coming from with that. But after working in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years, she’s dropped out, homeschooled her four children and. But she’s always had a side business in her life and she shares with others how to manage a well lived life of children, family, friends and clients while not suffering from burnout.

0:01:20 - (Stuart Webb): She’s now written 20 books, 112 online courses, four podcast programs and a radio show which all express her desire to share her systems and routines with others. And we’re going to get much more into Janine’s life as we talk about this. Janine, thank you for coming and spending a few minutes with us with so much going on. I appreciate how busy you are and therefore this must be a big stretch for you. So thank you so much for doing it.

0:01:44 - (Janine Bolon): You are so welcome. And I absolutely love being able to help other business owners not make my mistakes. I’m always like, I’ve made the mistakes, let me teach you my mistakes. And then you go make new ones. Don’t make the ones I made.

0:01:57 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, I know that feeling so much. Let’s just dive in a little bit too some of that stuff. Now then, then you must have an ideal client, somebody you’re trying to sort of really reach out and help describe what the sort of problem it is they’ve got, what is it that they’re doing as a mistake that you look at, I can help you from, from getting the third degree burn that you’re about to get to turn that into just a bonus gold.

0:02:21 - (Janine Bolon): Right? Right. We’re going to try to keep you from getting burnt at all. Okay. We’re going to try to keep that flesh nice and nice and calm. Right? Very calm. I think the biggest one with people that I work with, they’re already very accomplished. Like my people, they aren’t beginners in the sense of they’re starting fresh. Like, never written a book or never started a business. They’ve actually started a business, and they’re in a massive transition.

0:02:48 - (Janine Bolon): You know, they’ve either built the business, they’ve written the book, they’ve raised their family, all right, They’ve already accomplished, like, a career, they’ve started a nonprofit. I mean, these are the type of people who come to me and they get stuck because what they accomplished in the past is not helping them move forward with the way tech is happening so fast and so quickly. They’re getting all kinds of information.

0:03:10 - (Janine Bolon): So the thing is, is they don’t need a new course. They don’t need another book. They don’t, they don’t need these things. They need somebody who can help them tweeze out. Okay, this is what I’ve got. How do I move forward? So I like to share with people. I help you with clarity because you’ve already accomplished a lot, but now you’re trying to take this stuff that you have, this knowledge that you know, and then you’re trying to build some sort of a revenue system or a revenue stream with it, and there’s so much conflicting information.

0:03:40 - (Janine Bolon): I say, look, okay, all I’ve got that I can offer you is that I’ve been running businesses since I was 10 years of age. I’ve written, I’ve had 18 different businesses. I’ve had these type of careers. Do you want some help from that perspective? And they’re like, absolutely. And so those are my people that I’m. That I’m working with.

0:04:00 - (Stuart Webb): You’ve got such a wide range of helping them. What, I mean, we could get into sort of some of the ways in which you help, because I know you’ve got a scientist career, you’ve got, you’ve got alternative therapist career. But, but what are some of the mistakes you’ve seen them do? What are the things you watch them do and think, oh, not like that.

0:04:19 - (Janine Bolon): Right. Well, I really took that question of yours to heart and I, and I sat down and I was like, what are, what are the mistakes that people are making? Because I usually focus on what they’ve done. Right?

0:04:30 - (Stuart Webb): Yep.

0:04:30 - (Janine Bolon): And it’s, it’s what you’ve done, right, is what. Where we drive forward. But here are some of the mistakes that they have. And, and I won’t go through all eight of them. I thought what I would do for your people is I’ll create an article where I list out all my notes and they can go get the article later, blah, blah, blah. But for now, I’m just going to give the top four instead of all eight because I’ve been doing this for a while and I have a different group. But there’s three challenges that they’re all working with.

0:04:58 - (Stuart Webb): I want to, I’m just going to break in. I’m just going to break in at this moment. Jenny, before you start this and say when that article that Janine has just mentioned, we will have it. If you’re now looking at this going, I want that article, I want that article. We will have this at five questions over coffee.com forward/free stuff. I will make sure that Janine’s article is there. You can go get it. Because I can feel people already saying, can I get that? Can I get that now, Janine, don’t keep that promise for long.

0:05:26 - (Janine Bolon): I, I, I won’t keep you dangling too long, but I will need 24 hours because I’m still writing it. Okay, but I, I will send the link. But yeah, there is an article coming out on my blog. And the, the thing is, is there are three challenges that most of them are working with. Like, there’s the surface problem. The surface problem is I need more clients. I need more clients. I need more clients. Right.

0:05:47 - (Janine Bolon): I hear that so many times. And so that’s the surface problem. And I like to get a little deeper because you don’t need clients, you need a system, because you don’t have a system to handle how people are working with you. The real problem is, what is that repeatable system that you have for dealing with people as they’re coming into your life? And then the last one, this one’s very emotional because usually the people I’m talking with have had some sort of major life transition, a disruption. They’ve had a divorce, all the children have left home, they’ve sold their business, they’ve written the book. They don’t know what to do beyond the book. And that’s where things can get really muddled so quickly.

0:06:26 - (Janine Bolon): And so I like to say they’re afraid at the emotional level. There’s a fear there that they will have to work as hard the next 10 years as the 10 years previous. And I like to share with them, nope, we’re going to make it super easy, super simple, so that every day you wake up and you know exactly what you’re going to be doing that day, no matter if something horrible happens in your life. Because we’ve all had it.

0:06:53 - (Janine Bolon): I like the Buddhists. You know when the Buddhists say life is pain, pain is expected. And then they go, but suffering is optional. So what we try to do is help keep you focused on keeping that suffering as an option, not as a requirement. So that’s kind of the. The areas that they’re primarily challenged by. I wanted to kind of talk to you about that, but. All right, to your question and to your point, what is.

0:07:17 - (Janine Bolon): What is it that they do that doesn’t help them move it forward? The first one is they create something new. They constantly are creating new. The problem that a lot of them have is that when they come to me, they. Their creative side has been so sequestered and so highly structured, and they weren’t able to really express their creative side. They go into this massive creative Mode for, like, 10 years. They’re creating a course, they’re creating a new book, they’re creating, creating, creating. I even myself saw myself doing that, but I was only creating as my clients wanted, the next piece.

0:07:51 - (Janine Bolon): That’s the difference. You don’t create without an audience there. You create with your audience. And so that’s kind of where the challenge is. The second one is they try every marketing tactic they’ve heard at once. So they’re on social media, podcasts, YouTube, they’re speaking. They’re doing email newsletters, they’re networking, and they may do paid ads if they have enough money in the bank. And I’ve watched people go bankrupt doing that. And so we don’t want that to happen to you.

0:08:18 - (Janine Bolon): The third one is they mistake activity for progress. And I know we’ve heard this before, and this is something that I suffered from, and I know what an easy rabbit hole that one is to fall into. Alice, I get you. I understand why that may have happened, but really, it’s like your calendar is full and you’re doing all these things, but are you actually having conversations with people on the phone or Zoom or, you know, pick your messaging? But texting is not a conversation.

0:08:54 - (Janine Bolon): I know a lot of people think that is, but believe it or not, people are craving to have people talk to them. So texting is just setting up the conversation. Just want to let you know that. So, and the last one, and this one is my favorite, because this is, I’d say 20% of my clients. They’re waiting for everything to be perfect. The website needs work. They want a better headshot. They want to finish their book first.

0:09:18 - (Janine Bolon): And perfection is actually what is delaying their ability to bring in revenue. So those are the top four.

0:09:24 - (Stuart Webb): Do you know, Jenny, we could have four podcast episodes just on those four points. So I will not dive into every single one of them. But there are two which really struck with me as you were saying it. And you know, the two that I’m just going to highlight here and just sort of expand upon a little bit. The activity, which is busyness. You know, the thing which I hate about people who are busy is you can be a busy fool. You are, are chasing the wrong thing. I am so concerned with.

0:09:53 - (Stuart Webb): But you know, my business is a lot about sort of helping people realize that businesses don’t fail to scale in the way that they expect. What they do is they fail to create the value as fast as they leak value from the business. You know, they’re pouring new leads into the top of the funnel. They’re chasing, as you said, that new customer. And what they’ve recogn, what they don’t recognize is the fact that old customers have leaked away because you haven’t kept in touch with them, you haven’t spoken to them, you haven’t done the simple stuff.

0:10:24 - (Stuart Webb): And you can be so busy forgetting to do that that you are, you are effectively leaking great value. And, and I see a lot of people who are doing exactly what you said, they’re very busy with activity, not recognizing that a lot of that activity, one possibly should be systemized into some sort of automated system to do that for them to sort of create the, the same level of activity but with no effort from them. But, but also they’re doing the wrong thing because it doesn’t actually help them move the, the value chain any further up because they’re, they’re working on the wrong thing. They’re working and being a bottleneck. So, you know, all the decisions come through them. They’re very busy making decisions, but natural. The rest of the team is sitting there waiting for somebody to make a decision so they can move on.

0:11:09 - (Stuart Webb): It isn’t the same as being an effective organization. And an efficient efficiency is, is under misunderstood so often.

0:11:17 - (Janine Bolon): Right? And I like to talk about KPIs and a lot of people like roll their eyeballs. You can see them like, oh my God, don’t talk to me about key performance indicators. And I’m like, but I don’t know how to run a business without them. I, I don’t know how to monitor and take a temperature check of my business. And it’s not just revenue. Revenue comes at the end. All right? Revenue is at the end of the system chain. It’s not the beginning.

0:11:45 - (Janine Bolon): And so one of the things I like to share with people is like how many people have you spoken to on the phone this week or zoom? Both are fine. Right. And did you invite them to the next step? And that’s what I like. Those are the two questions I ask. And you can just see people’s face kind of go, what? I’m like, that’s what we’re asking. What. What kind of opportunities have you presented for yourself? So when they say, I, I need more clients, I need more clients, I’m like, have you gone to your master contact sheet? And I’ll make sure, Stuart, that you have this. This is a free training that I have on my blog on the master contact sheet.

0:12:21 - (Janine Bolon): And when I talk to people, they’re like, well, I don’t know that many people. I said, you don’t know. You don’t need a lot of people. But when I downloaded everybody out of my phone and I downloaded everybody out of Facebook and Everybody out of LinkedIn, because you can do that. And I downloaded all those people, and I have a team member that has started setting up conversations. And I’m like, oh, and by the way, make sure you put some sort of note down there, because I’m not going to remember them.

0:12:48 - (Janine Bolon): I have currently 3,828 people in my master contact sheet. These are people who have reached out to me. It’s not me going out to them. And so they’re not cold leads, they’re warm. They’re people who already know you. Now, I have had a few people. Now, going to be honest here, I’ve had a few people where I reached out and they’re like, how do I know you? And I’m like, great question. We connected back in 2019.

0:13:13 - (Janine Bolon): A few things have happened since then. Do you want to catch up or is this, like, not something you want to do? Like, I am always inviting. I’m giving them an out. Why? I don’t want to deal with people who are hesitant around me. They either make the decision yes or no. But if they’re like, oh, I don’t know if this is a good foot, tell me more. I’m like, not my people. My people are like, yes, let’s move to the next step. Let’s. Let’s get to know each other. Like, those are my people.

0:13:39 - (Janine Bolon): Maybe you want to work with the hesitant people, that’s fine. But that’s not my. That’s not my purpose.

0:13:45 - (Stuart Webb): And I do think that sometimes with that sort of strategy and once again, just sort of expanding a little bit on that, people sort of say, well, we’ve got to, you know. And I Get so frustrated with this. Well, the next step has to be the same. No, it doesn’t. The next step has to be to have another meeting or the next call. Have another call. Well, the next step can be, hey, we’ve had a great time. Let’s do this again in six months. I mean, it doesn’t have to be the sale every single time. And I do get somewhat frustrated with people who think that, you know, reach out on LinkedIn, get a sale, move on to the next one. That, you know, we’re human beings, we sometimes we need time to just build the trust, build the communication, and then go, yeah, you know, that, that was a good time. I’m, I’m happy to do that again in a few months time. Or, you know, the next step would be for us to explore that solution. Let’s go. Let’s go do that. Let’s. Let’s actually put a time in the D for that. But it doesn’t have to be that every single time.

0:14:38 - (Janine Bolon): And I will let people know I’m a relationship marketer, and I have a very long window before somebody will fork over cash. But when people fork over money, they’re forking over anywhere from 9,000 to $50,000 for me. So to me, I am not going to rush that process. Enough people have been rushed, and I don’t, I don’t rush them. And so that’s why the whole process and the whole program is called revenue without rush. If you’re looking for a quick fix, I am not your person.

0:15:06 - (Janine Bolon): If you’re looking for something that because you’re desperate, I am not your person. However, if you’re desperate but you’re willing to put in a little time, and a little time is six months, then we can help get you out of that situation. But, yeah, it’s one of those situations where you’re like, look, the best kind of businesses build their systems. And that’s why one of my icons is a turtle, because the turtle’s carrying his whole thing like he’s got his whole, you know, the tortoise and the hare is a wonderful mythos, especially for sales. All right. And the whole purpose is you’re going to make sure you make it. And the other thing I like about turtles is they live a long time.

0:15:47 - (Janine Bolon): They’re not going to burn out. They’re moving at their pace. Thank you.

0:15:52 - (Stuart Webb): And they do well on it. Janina, I. I’m fairly sure that this next question, I mean, you’ve already delivered huge amounts of value in the last couple of minutes. But is there one, one piece of, a two piece of advice that you would leave with people? You know, I’ve already referenced that. We will have your stuff at the, at the link with the free stuff link. But. And that’s back on state on the, on the, on the, on the screen now, which is the five questions ever. Coffee.com

0:16:21 - (Stuart Webb): forward/free stuff. But is there a one or two pieces of advice that you’d like to, you know, past do you, what you pass without, without question to people?

0:16:33 - (Janine Bolon): There’s two. And I was looking over, I was looking over my notes because I had like five or six and I thought, what are the most important here?

0:16:40 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:16:43 - (Janine Bolon): And I think the first one is if you’re a highly creative person and you want to start making revenue for yourself and you really want to build that side hack or what have you, if you’re highly creative, build a system. Systems create the freedom for your creativity, the challenges. A lot of creatives have been so controlled for so long. They bust out and they’re like, screw it, I’m going to do it my own way. I’m not listening to anybody. It’s all about me and I’m going to do it my own way. And then they wonder why they’ve taken a year and they still don’t have a style, still don’t have a marketing campaign. They still don’t have a system for handling new people. They’re not getting the consignments that they want. They’re not getting people coming in and saying, hey, can you do this for me?

0:17:26 - (Janine Bolon): And that’s where I want you to be in six months. Not flailing, still flailing around after a year. So highly creative people see structure and systems as loss of freedom. They don’t really because they’ve had external control of that. However, if you’re the one building a business, you’re the one wanting to build this creative business, then what you do is you make sure you have your time for creativity and then you build out your systems for the lifestyle you want. And that’s where it becomes very personal, very private.

0:17:57 - (Janine Bolon): But it helps to have somebody like myself or Stuart. I don’t care who you pick. Pick somebody. Pick somebody who can say, okay, now let’s make sure we walk you through so you can get you revenue by the end of it. So I highly recommend that you definitely start talking to Stuart because he knows what he’s talking about. If he attracted somebody like me to get on his freaking show, he obviously has systems in place.

0:18:18 - (Janine Bolon): Because my Team only operates in systems. And the system has to fit your life so you don’t burn out.

0:18:24 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, yeah.

0:18:24 - (Janine Bolon): It’s not imposing a system. It’s like, what kind of lifestyle are you wanting with this business? What are your current engagements? Some people have children, some don’t. Some have a 9 to 5. You know, it just depends on what’s happening to you. And so talk to Stuart about it so he can get you in the right direction. Yeah,

0:18:44 - (Stuart Webb): you’ve got another one. I can feel it.

0:18:46 - (Janine Bolon): We got a second one. Yeah, yeah. What is your version of success? And people hate this question, but it’s like, literally, is it revenue? If you totally make your success based on the money, you’re in for a long haul. You are in for a side hack that is going to burn hot and you’re always going to be selling. And you will have it on your breath. It will come out on your breath. Or is your measure of success how many people you help?

0:19:19 - (Janine Bolon): Is your measure of success how many people you actually contact this week? For me, it’s how many people can I help in a week? And if I keep in that mode, I’m making my five phone calls a day. I’m hitting my marks, I’m hitting my thing, and then something happens like a kid has to go to college and all of a sudden they don’t have an apartment and we’re scrambling. I may not get all five people in that day, but I got one phone call in as I’m making phone calls, helping my kids out with whatever’s happening at uni. Right.

0:19:50 - (Janine Bolon): So, you know, life happens. But if you have that system in place, it can adjust to what level of success you are guiding yourself in.

0:20:00 - (Stuart Webb): Can I just throw one other into that? Because I think it’s another great measure of success, which is don’t hear enough people talking about. And they, they. We talked a little bit about it just now. People will turn around and say, I need more sales. But actually, one of the great measures of success is whether or not you’ve got the right number. Because, you know, if you doubled your business tomorrow, if you. If you’ve got 10 clients and you threw in another 10, you could break your business. And a lot of people chase after those 10 thinking it’s.

0:20:28 - (Stuart Webb): But in actual fact, that could break your business because you just cannot cope, particularly if you don’t have a good system or even if you’ve got a system that’s scaled to 10 and it’s not scaled for 20. So you can actually chase after the number and that number can be the bat, could, could break your business because it’s, you’re just not ready for it. So I think too many people don’t think about what’s my number, what is the number of customers I really need, and what have I built in terms of a system in order to be able to accommodate a doubling or a trebling of my, my number.

0:20:58 - (Stuart Webb): You, you’re chasing five contacts a day, which is so easily scalable. You know, you are, you are just keeping things ticking on because those five, you know, yes, not all will result in a new contact, but if you were chasing revenue, you could easily break because you could. Your team at the moment is set up for X amount, Y, a man could easily break.

0:21:20 - (Janine Bolon): So a good point. And one of those things that I constantly am working with people of, don’t worry about scaling. Make sure that you’re getting the numbers you need right now. And then when you get ready to scale, call Stuart.

0:21:34 - (Stuart Webb): Number situation. Let’s move on to what brought you to here, Janine, because you’re somebody with such an interest. As I said at the beginning, you’re a scientist, you’re a book author, you’re a podcast guest, podcast host. You have 112 online programs. What gate, what started that path? How did you get from where you were to where you are? What was it, a book? A course? Being struck by lightning? What was the thing that got you from where you were to where you are now?

0:22:11 - (Janine Bolon): Well, it started with me going back to college as an adult after 20 years. So I had gone to uni and gotten my baccalaureate in science and analytical biochemistry. So I’ve always been very much steeped in technology. And for those of you who may or may not know about biochemistry, it’s the study of cells at the molecular level. So pretty tiny stuff. And it required you to have the same education as engineers because you were working with many of the same instrumentation. So kind of a hardware junkie at the same time.

0:22:49 - (Janine Bolon): And so I was going back to college and I was getting the degree that I thought I was getting as an analytical biochemist, which was, I wanted to know how to live well because I thought college was going to help me live well. And my family did a beautiful job in raising me. I lived to 18, you know, but at age 18, you were kicked out of the house. They were done. Like it, there was no, there was no going back as far as they were concerned. It’s like, figure it out, kid. You’re on your own. You know, you were booted out the door.

0:23:21 - (Janine Bolon): And, and so I wanted to know how to live well. And I’ve always had a side hack, I’ve always had a side business because I just never felt like one job could encapsulate everything that I wanted to learn and do and experience and have. So when I went back to my master’s, I started coaching everybody on money. And when I say everybody, I was helping freshman students, I was helping faculty members. I ended up going before the board of the college that I was in and I gave the principles of the 60:40 rule.

0:23:53 - (Janine Bolon): And then back in 2005, if you can go back that far, far, I ended up taking my master’s thesis and creating it into a book. And I was called Vain. Because you were so vain. You were self publishing. Now it’s all the rage. I feel like, oh, finally everybody’s caught up to my party. But back then, Amazon only sold books. And I got on Amazon after jumping through all their hoops and spending $225, I got onto Amazon and people thought I was a big name. So that’s how it started. It was my master’s thesis, which was called Money.

0:24:30 - (Janine Bolon): It’s Not Just for Rich People. And that was the beginning.

0:24:34 - (Stuart Webb): Wow. Wow. That’s a more interesting origin story than anybody else has had, I’m fairly sure. And I say that as one biochemist to another, so.

0:24:46 - (Janine Bolon): Right. Which is one of the reasons Stuart, I’m like, oh, this is going to be great.

0:24:53 - (Stuart Webb): Look, Janine, I, I think that’s, that’s an incredible story. And you know, that led you into understanding things about business and, and book publishing, but you’ve obviously just not stopped. You just, you just keep reinventing yourself, don’t you? What, what is, what’s next for you? And you, you’re now helping people out with, with systems and building their business. You’ve got an. If you’ve got an eye on the future that you’re thinking about, you know, or are you just happy to live today?

0:25:20 - (Janine Bolon): I always have an eye on the future. And that is because I know how precious this life is. When you have a life altering event like getting struck by lightning, you don’t take anything for granted. You don’t take the fact that every morning, and you’ll forgive me, but every morning I wake up and I go, hot damn, I get another day. I mean, seriously, you don’t come through certain aspects and certain experiences without having an attitude. And so that keeps me going.

0:25:51 - (Janine Bolon): And the reason I have an eye on the future is my last child. I have four My last child is wrapping up their final semester in college, so my business is going to change again, right? Because now more time is going to be opening up. I don’t know. I paid the last tuition payment two weeks ago, and so I. Responsibilities are falling off, but new responsibilities are coming. What does that mean? I choose.

0:26:19 - (Janine Bolon): I just don’t accept new responsibilities. I’m making very discreet choices on what am I going to do, and I cannot encourage you enough to make choices based on what you want to do.

0:26:31 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. Now, that leads me to my last question, which is, well, probably you’re thinking to yourself, the one killer question he hasn’t yet asked me, and I can’t wait for him to do it. But I don’t know what that killer question is. And so therefore, Janine, what is the killer question that I should have asked you, which I haven’t yet. And obviously, as you know the question, you better answer it for us as well.

0:26:54 - (Janine Bolon): The question that I would love for you to have asked me is what drives me to keep moving forward.

0:27:04 - (Stuart Webb): I have a funny feeling you have a really great answer for this one.

0:27:08 - (Janine Bolon): I do. My father was in the Navy, and I remember as a very young child, he always said, if you don’t have your polestar in alignment, you will never make where you want to go. Now, for those of you who may not understand nautical terms, because there are a few. A polestar was the old way they used to navigate the masted ships. And it is very daunting as a young child when you’re taken up into a ship, whether metal or wooden, and you get to go into the crow’s nest, whatever that may look like, and you get to see that. And then you’re told, now where are you gonna go? And all you see, 360 degrees is water.

0:27:53 - (Janine Bolon): There’s no land mass. There’s nothing. What do you say? What do you do? And that’s what I turned to my dad, and I’m like, I don’t know where. I don’t even know where land is. You know, I’m eight. I. I don’t even know where land is. I just let him drive the boat, right? That’s what I said, Drive the boat. And that’s when he taught me, oh, you’re going to need a sextant. And he goes, and in life, that’s your moral compass.

0:28:17 - (Janine Bolon): Yeah, have your sextant figure out where the sun is, figure out, blah, blah, blah. And then when it turned night, he was teaching me how to navigate by the stars. So A pole star is how you navigate at night when nothing is around you but water. And I’m sure if you were listening to this, you’ve had something happen in your life where everything was burned to ash, where you felt like there was nothing left, and you had 30 days to get your act together.

0:28:42 - (Janine Bolon): It’s like, I’ve lived this once or twice. You have 30 days to get your act together and figure out what you’re going to do for you and your family. So make sure you know, you have your sextant, you have your mobile compass, and you have a pole star. And that’s what drives me forward.

0:28:57 - (Stuart Webb): Janine, I. I am speechless. I love that. And I think it’s probably the most important thing that you, despite the fact you’ve said everything’s important, having I. Having. Having that star, having something which you focus on and keep you going. You know, so many people, I think, fail to understand the importance of having that, to keep them centered, to keep them going towards something. Now, that can be.

0:29:24 - (Stuart Webb): That can be a measure that you put into your business. It can be something where you turn around and say, I know that if I help. And I. I’ve said this to so many people who come to me and say, I don’t like sales, don’t sell, then in that case, start helping people. So maybe you just reach out and you say, I’m going to help a few people today. Some of those people might pay you, some of them might not. I don’t know that it.

0:29:46 - (Stuart Webb): That it matters. Go help somebody. And if that’s your North Star, if that’s your polestar, then use that as your compass to say, how many people have I helped today? How many people have I reached out today? How many people today have said thank you to me because I did something for them, Whatever it is, go do that, Janine. That’s been inspiring for me. I really appreciate it. And I know you do. You do all sorts of things. You have.

0:30:09 - (Stuart Webb): You have coffee, coffee mornings where people could join you on this sort of thing, don’t they? So we’re going to put some of those links into our free stuff. We’re going to point you towards where Janine does some of this stuff, because I think she’s one of the most helpful people we’ve come across. And I love the fact that she’s come and spent a few minutes with us today. Thank you so much for doing that. Janine. I’m just going to ask one question.

0:30:30 - (Stuart Webb): Would you. If you’re listening to this and you think I’d like to hear more from people like Janine. We get people, few of them as inspiring as this, but go to fivequestionsovercoffee.com you can use that to subscribe to the to the to the RSS feed that will give you this podcast on a regular basis and you will get to hear about people like Janine coming up and talking about some really important stuff like this. Janine, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us.

0:30:54 - (Stuart Webb): Really appreciate it. And thank you for being such a generous guest.

0:30:59 - (Janine Bolon): My pleasure. Take care of yourself.

0:31:01 - (Stuart Webb): Thank you.

Who is Allen?

Allen Kopelman is the seasoned founder of a forward-thinking payments company, with an impressive professional career spanning over 25 years in the payments industry. Previously involved in the hospitality sector as a restaurant owner and chef, Allen transitioned to the payments industry with a resolve to help business owners optimize their transaction processes. His deep understanding of both sides of the payment equation empowers him to create client-centric solutions that enhance business growth and efficiency. Allen is a problem solver at heart and a respected voice in the industry, also contributing as a writer for the Green Sheet magazine.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science: Five Questions Over Coffee, where Stuart Webb engages with Allen Kopelman, the innovative founder of a successful payments company. In this enlightening episode, Allen delves into the intricacies of payment solutions, outlining how tailored payment software can significantly reduce costs for business owners. Through sharing his rich experience, Allen illustrates the transformation from traditional payment setups to today’s software-centric approaches. The conversation touches upon key elements that businesses need to consider when scaling their payment operations, with insights into common challenges faced by startups and how his company provides resolute solutions.

The discussion highlights practical advice on leveraging payment technologies to maintain cash flow, avoiding the pitfall of becoming a financial buffer for clients. Allen underscores the importance of invoice automation and understanding interchange in order to enhance business operations. His valuable insights and real-world anecdotes underscore the critical role of payment strategies in ensuring business viability. Business owners and payment professionals alike will find this conversation both informative and inspirational, offering actionable strategies for optimizing payment processes and fortifying cash flow.

Key Takeaways:

* Understanding your payment system is crucial to effective business operations, especially when considering scalability and customer service.

* Automated billing systems can significantly improve cash flow and free up resources for core business functions.

* Business owners should avoid negotiating long-term payment terms, thereby mitigating cash flow issues by effectively utilizing credit options for customers.

* The importance of understanding interchange rates in optimizing payment transactions, particularly as businesses expand.

* Transitioning from traditional business approaches to embracing software solutions can improve operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Notable Quotes:

* “Payments is all about software...using the proper technology based on whatever business it is that you have.”

* “Your customer already has a bank. You shouldn’t really be doing that as a business owner.”

* “Cash flow is king...you shouldn’t really be doing that as a business owner.”

* “You have to make decisions, you can’t just wallow around.”

* “Don’t be the bank. Your customer already has a bank.”

Resources:

* Allen Kopelman: LinkedIn Profile [Not explicitly mentioned but relevant]

* The Green Sheet: Industry magazine where Allen contributes.

* Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, a recommended book.

* The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins, another highly recommended book.

* Visit It’s Not Rocket Science: Five Questions Over Coffee for free resources and more insights from the episode.

Dive into the full episode to grasp the depth of Allen’s expertise and stay tuned for more discussions that demystify complex topics with simplicity and p

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SPEAKERS

Allen Kopelman, Stuart Webb

0:00:00 - (Stuart Webb): Foreign. Hi, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I am here with my, my lizard mug, which is where I get my coffee for these things. And there’s Alan. I can see Alan has got his drink in front of him. So welcome to you, Alan. Alan Koppelman is our guest today. Alan is the founder of a payments company. So I guess we’re going to get in some really interesting discussions about how payments can help business owner grow their business with reduced costs. So welcome to five questions over coffee, Alan.

0:00:59 - (Allen Kopelman): Well, thank you for having me today, Stuart.

0:01:02 - (Stuart Webb): Absolutely no problem. So, Alan, let’s start with sort of trying to understand from, from the sort of business owners that you speak to, who is it that you’re trying to help with the solution that you’ve got?

0:01:15 - (Allen Kopelman): Well, we always talk to the business owner. I mean, in a larger company, we might be talking to the CFO or talking to someone in their IT department because, you know, today, you know, payments used to be, you know, a bunch of little machines around. And you know, now today, today payments, you know, been doing this for 25 years. Payments is all about software. So we always have to make sure, you know, how are we doing these payments, how are we connecting everything?

0:01:46 - (Allen Kopelman): How is that all put together? And you know, so, you know, doing payments is not just a commodity. It’s all about, you know, using the proper technology based on whatever business it is that you have.

0:02:02 - (Stuart Webb): And, and tell me, what solutions have business owners tried before they come across somebody like you? What, what is it they’re trying to do? What is it they’re trying to do without perhaps sort of seeking help from the sort of solutions that you’ve got?

0:02:18 - (Allen Kopelman): Well, a lot of times people are starting a business and they run to Stripe, but you know, sometimes they run into problems over there scaling because Stripe doesn’t really do underwriting of the merchant. They kind of underwrite the transactions and it’s kind of a little bit different of a setup. And then they could run into issues based on their business type and things like that. A lot of people today, you know, I probably come across one person a week that’s starting a business that virtually there aren’t, they’re either the first one or there’s maybe only a few of those around.

0:03:05 - (Allen Kopelman): And a lot of times they don’t understand, like, oh, well, I’m going to the, like, we had a guy recently had a cost recovery company and I was like, well, what is that? Explain it to me. So he explained, he goes, oh, it’s for Medical, Medical billing, recovery. Let’s say you’re a doctor and you did an operation and the bills, you know, you sent the bill to the insurance company for 10,000 and they agreed to pay 10,000.

0:03:33 - (Allen Kopelman): But in the end they re reviewed it and they only sent the doctor 6000. So what it doctor do they get with this medical recovery company? And they, they go after the other $4,000 and they get a percentage of it. And you know, so is that really a collections company? No, it’s cost recovery. They’re not recover. They’re not collecting money from a consumer or a business in essence, right? They’re, they’re recovering, they’re collecting money from an insurance company.

0:04:09 - (Allen Kopelman): So it’s not really, they’re not really a collections company. So we had to explain it to a few banks. Finally one of them got it and they were like, oh, okay, this isn’t really a collections company. It’s closer to medical billing than collections. So, you know, this is the things that like, we can help people with. You know, there’s so many companies out there today that are fintech companies or SaaS companies or AI companies.

0:04:37 - (Allen Kopelman): And then these companies have no phone numbers. You can only email them or do some kind of online chat with them. And you know, if you’re a business owner and you need to have that, you know, I don’t say we need to hold your hand the whole time, but you want to be, you want to have that assurance that when you have an issue in your business, you’re able to call somebody and get your issue taken care of.

0:05:02 - (Allen Kopelman): You know, then you should work with a company like mine.

0:05:06 - (Stuart Webb): And, and how long have you been in business? I think you said just then you’ve been doing this for 25 years. What, what, what, what was the sort of starting point for this?

0:05:16 - (Allen Kopelman): So the starting point was I owned a restaurant and I was, you know, in a chef and I was in the hospitality industry. I worked in hotels, country clubs. I worked for a consulting company where we would go to hotels, mostly country clubs, not, not very many like individual restaurants. And then we would do, you know, help them with menu engineering, costing, hiring, you know, staffing, recipes, all kinds of, you know, all kinds of different things.

0:05:49 - (Allen Kopelman): And, you know, and I decided, okay, I’m going to make a change in life and look for something else to do. And I got into this business and I kind of knew what it was to be on the other side, to be the, the business accepting credit cards. And one of the things that I, you know, there was things that I hated about it and you know, and I wanted to make sure, like if I was going to get into this business that I was going to be able to help business owners, you know, navigate like what’s going on, how to read the statement, how to make sure, like I’m working with a good company that has an easy to read statement that people are going to understand and make sure that there’s customer service for our customers, make sure that we’re able to take, keep them in business by, you know, making sure that they have equipment that’s reliable and if it breaks, you know, we’re going to be able to replace it quickly and things like that in the, in the very beginning because that’s what the business required. And over time, you know, that’s changed to the point where, you know, today people are looking at software and not necessarily looking at just getting a credit card machine.

0:07:08 - (Stuart Webb): And so what’s the valuable piece of advice that you could give to a business owner from somebody like you who’s been on the side of collecting money, but now helps them to sort of collect that money quicker and make it flow through their business? Because we all know it’s cash flow that kills businesses. The business may have great ideas, may have great customers, may have great products, but unless you can collect the money quickly and turn that into operating cash, it becomes difficult to keep that business running.

0:07:40 - (Allen Kopelman): Yeah, one thing is, and today a lot of businesses are not like they don’t, it’s not like a credit card machine on the counter thing. It’s more like, oh, I’m sending steward an invoice, right. And then getting you to pay the invoice. So you know, you have to really start to think about, you know, I have a saying, don’t be the bank.

0:08:00 - (Stuart Webb): Right?

0:08:00 - (Allen Kopelman): Your customer already has a bank. So you know, you don’t need to go, you know, the days of negotiating terms like 30, 60 day terms with people, you shouldn’t really be doing that as a business owner. As a business owner, you should be, you should be saying, okay, I need to collect my money up front, send the customer an invoice, let them pay by credit card or ach. So I can collect my funds up front and let their bank be their financer of, of it is, let the bank, let their bank finance their, the, the purchase.

0:08:42 - (Allen Kopelman): Because today when you, you know, and this hasn’t probably, I mean, I would say maybe, you know, 25 years ago, maybe money, I don’t think money was much cheaper than it is now. But you know, when you look at if you had to access a line of credit, you could be spending 7 to 10% or you’re using your capital that you could be using to buy more cups or more microphones or whatever it is that you sell and you’re depleting your ready cash that you have to purchase inventory.

0:09:16 - (Allen Kopelman): Right. So, you know, don’t float, you don’t need to float. Customers have a way to float money now by using their credit card. They can put the purchase on their credit card and, and it’s only costing you, let’s say, two and a half to 3%. And you don’t have to let go of your cash because you need your cash to, you know, pay your employees, pay your bills, pay your rent. And believe me, I’ve helped businesses turn this like whole thing around, you know, over, over 25 years.

0:09:50 - (Allen Kopelman): You know, I, I always tell the story. I had this client that he was a CPA and he decided to expand his business. He was going to get into bookkeeping. So he bought a book, a small bookkeeping company with more than 100 clients. And they grew it to like 300 clients. But the problem was the clients weren’t paying on time. And I had met him and I said, hey, let me show you our billing system. And once I showed him the billing system, within 90 days they got everybody, all new customers signed up for automatic billing.

0:10:24 - (Allen Kopelman): And all the old customers, they got them all signed up too. And then that freed up their staff from chasing money. Yeah, you know, they were all sitting around making phone calls, hey, when can you pay your bill? When can you pay your bill? They’re waiting for checks in the mail now. There’s no check in the mail. And they’ve literally like in two years, they ended up doubling the size of the company.

0:10:49 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, brilliant, brilliant story, brilliant story. And rightly so. Because you need that cash to, as you say, to pay inventory or bring in new inventory or pay cust your, your employees bills. You can’t afford to have it sitting around in customers wallets waiting for them to, to pay your invoice, can you?

0:11:06 - (Allen Kopelman): No, you can’t afford to do that. You, you know, today in any business, cash flow is king. When you, whenever you read stories online about this place or that place, when they go bankrupt, they just don’t have any cash flow and that’s the main problem that they’re having.

0:11:22 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, brilliant. Alan, what brought you, you mentioned, you mentioned being a chef, but what was the origin story? Was there a, was there a, a final moment of being a chef when you went, no, I can’t take this anymore. I’ve just got to get into being a. A business owner. Or was there a cash flow problem? What was it that brought you to what you do now?

0:11:41 - (Allen Kopelman): No, Well, I didn’t. I had a very. I had a. I had my own restaurant at the time, and it was. It was. It was successful. And I wanted to add liquor because liquor is a lot more profitable than food.

0:11:55 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah.

0:11:56 - (Allen Kopelman): And I was like, I need to add liquor. So I was going through the process of getting the liquor license, which I obtained, and then I was expanding the business because you have to have a certain amount of seats in order to have an liquor license. When you’re serving food, there’s a consumption license. They call it in Florida, cop consumption on premises. So I was going through the process, and then all of a sudden, I went down to the city, and the city’s like, oh, the landlord said, you weren’t gonna.

0:12:29 - (Allen Kopelman): You weren’t gonna open the other side of the store? And I’m like, what? I was in the middle of the construction. I went down there to pick up the. The next. You know, go. Go down there to find out when they coming over to inspect so we could finish the project. And then we got into a lawsuit and this and that and whatever. I ended up recovering all my money, and then I was just like, I’m done. And for a few months, I was looking for other.

0:12:56 - (Allen Kopelman): Other locations, but I kept running into the same problem where I needed to have X amount of seats to have this liquor license. And at the time, in the area where I was in Boca Raton, Delray, these cities were not allowing for outside seating, so you couldn’t get liquor. A liquor license. And I was like, you know what? Not gonna open another restaurant unless I can get a liquor license. And it doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen.

0:13:24 - (Allen Kopelman): And I was still doing, like, catering and stuff because I had another kitchen in a warehouse, and I was doing that. And then one of my friends said, hey, you should try this credit card business. And I. I worked for somebody. Yeah, I worked for somebody for about a year. And then I said, you know what? I kept that. People were asking me about, like, technology solutions, and they were like, no, no, just sell them a machine.

0:13:48 - (Allen Kopelman): And I was like, you know, there’s more to this business. And then some. I met somebody, and they told me. They said, hey, read this magazine called the Green Sheet, in which I write for that magazine. I’ve been writing for that magazine for a while, for two years. I wrote a column in there and so I ended up opening my own company.

0:14:10 - (Stuart Webb): Brilliant. I love the story. The frustration led you to be the person that solves the problem. That’s brilliant.

0:14:19 - (Allen Kopelman): It’s important, you know, you want to solve the problem. And you know, if anybody wants to look at like our, we have like a cash flow calculator on our website and it’s on the solutions page. We have a bunch of different calculators that can show you, you know, how much money you can save. But we have one under B2B cash flow and it has a whole calculator talking about, you know, you tell it how much business you do and, and then it will explain how much money you can save by taking credit cards versus waiting for a check in the mail.

0:14:54 - (Stuart Webb): And if you go to our vault, which is five questions over coffee.com freestuff you will get a direct link straight to what Alan has just des there, which is a, a, the, the, the calculator where you can see exactly how much you could save by doing that calculation. And believe me, the number of businesses I point towards things like that in order to get them to understand how cash flow can kill them is absolutely critical.

0:15:23 - (Stuart Webb): So yeah, brilliant. Thank you very much for that, Alan. Uh, Alan, just as a final question now that we uh, as we’re reaching into the, into the, to the final point that we’re getting to on this, is there a question that I should have asked you? Is there something that I should have asked but I’ve not yet been able to sort of get that from you? Is there something that you’re thinking, you know, there’s a killer question in here and he just hasn’t spotted it. What, what is the killer question that I should have, I should have asked you by now?

0:15:56 - (Allen Kopelman): Well, I don’t give out all the secrets, but you know, one, one of the, one of the things that we do do tell people is there when you’re on, when you’re using, when you’re doing at least 25,000 or $50,000 a month, you don’t. Businesses need to start to learn about Interchange and how Interchange works and why those flat rate companies who are charging 2.9 to, let’s say 4% are charging people, you know, why you shouldn’t be on that program anymore and why you should be on Interchange. Pass through and you can contact me and I will explain the secret to you about how the, how, how credit card interchange works and how that can impact your business.

0:16:44 - (Allen Kopelman): And a lot of businesses just don’t realize that you know these flat rate companies, while they can help you get started, we can help you optimize what you’re, what you’re doing so that you can spend less on credit processing.

0:17:00 - (Stuart Webb): So let me just suggest, and I’ve just.

0:17:01 - (Allen Kopelman): That’s the screen.

0:17:02 - (Stuart Webb): If you, yeah, if you would like to get that, that from Alan, if you drop a message into the chat, it, if he doesn’t see it and answer it, I will and I will point anything that I see people dropping into the chat beneath this video on LinkedIn or wherever. If you see that question, if you’ve got that question and you haven’t, you drop it into the chat, Alan will get to answer it and he will be able to guide you through the next stages.

0:17:30 - (Stuart Webb): And if you’ve listening to us now on Spotify or Apple podcasts or anywhere like that, once again there’s a chat function, you could drop it into the chat function and you can ask that question. We will get Alan to answer those questions for you. Alan, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us and talking us through that. I know you’re a busy guy. You were busy just before we came on air. So I’m not going to sort of make you stay and try and keep going for, for many hours. So I’m just going to give you,

0:17:57 - (Allen Kopelman): I’ll give you like two, I’ll drop you two tidbits because you gave me the question about, about books. So I would tell anybody, business owner, two books that I really like in my life. Who moved the cheese? Somebody gave me that book when I first started my business. I think it’s a really important book that can really change your mindset. And the other one was Mel Robbins, the Five Second Rule.

0:18:26 - (Stuart Webb): That’s a brilliant, that’s another really brilliant suggestion because the one thing I love about the Mel Robbins book, it’s so easy to implement everywhere you go, isn’t it? I mean, from getting out of bed to making a decision. It really is. And I think that the thing about the Mel Robbins and the thing I’m always very conscious of, so many business owners believe that a decision they’re taking is, is final and one way and most of the decisions we’re taking as business owners, we can reverse them. If you sort of do it and then you say, hang on a minute, that was a mistake. It’s so easy to step back. We, it’s our pride that stops us from stepping back rather than anything else.

0:19:03 - (Stuart Webb): You can so easily turn around and say, no, I made a Mistake there. I did it. I did it the other day with something. I went, no, no, I’ve made a mistake. Let’s just go back. I apologize to people. And I just go, look, we’ve got to go back. Too often. We think, I’ve made a decision, I’ve got to keep going. That’s the wrong way to do it.

0:19:19 - (Allen Kopelman): Yeah, but the thing is, you know, you gotta. You have to make decisions. You can’t just wallow around, oh, should I do this? Should I not do that? You know, have a, have a limit. Like, oh, can I waste. Can I spend a thousand bucks and I won’t be mad?

0:19:32 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah, yeah, that’s your limit.

0:19:34 - (Allen Kopelman): Then that’s, Then that’s your limit. And you go, okay, well, this only costs 500. Let’s try it. It’s worth it.

0:19:40 - (Stuart Webb): And if it, if it doesn’t work out, hey, you know, you tried. It doesn’t work out. So that’s the. That’s it. And that’s a great piece of advice. I’m glad we finished on that one. I think that’s a great way to finish this. Get people to make a decision. Thank you so much for coming and spending a few minutes with us. Really appreciate that. And I look forward to sort of seeing how people comment and thank us for, for bringing some of that wisdom here.

0:20:05 - (Stuart Webb): If you’d like to be informed of what’s going on, I send out notes every week about who’s coming on and who’s going to be available. Just go to this link, which is five questions over coffee.com. if you click on that link, you can subscribe. You will get access to the podcast, you’ll get access to notes about who’s coming up. And also remember, if you go to the five questions over coffee.com forward/freestuff, you will get access to the brilliant free advice that not only Alan’s been giving here, transcripts and things like that, but also from other guests. So, Allan, thank you so much for spending some time with us. Really appreciate it.

0:20:45 - (Stuart Webb): You’re a busy guy and you’ve got lots of other people that you got to talk to, so I’m going to let you go and we’ll talk again very soon.

0:20:51 - (Allen Kopelman): Well, thank you for having me on today. I really appreciate it. It was fun.

0:20:56 - (Stuart Webb): No problem. Thank.

Who is Arba?

Arba Cooper is a distinguished marketeer with a longstanding expertise in technology, dating back to the 80s. Specializing as a digital marketing trainer, Arba dedicates her efforts toward solopreneurs, particularly baby boomers, who are facing challenges with technological advancements. Her passion is fueled by personal experience and a strong desire to help others navigate the complexities of digital marketing, particularly video marketing. Arba is celebrated for her patience and ability to distill complex technological concepts into approachable, relatable lessons.

Key Takeaways

In this episode of “Five Questions Over Coffee,” hosted by Stuart Webb, we dive into a lively and informative discussion with Arba Cooper, an expert in digital marketing and technology. Arbor shares her longstanding experience in technology, having witnessed its evolution since the 80s, and her passion for helping solopreneurs, particularly those within the baby boomer demographic, accustom themselves to the digital age. This episode unveils Arba’s insights on the potency of video as an essential marketing tool, especially in the age of AI.

Arba discusses her role in assisting solopreneurs who struggle with integrating new technologies into their business strategies. She describes how she supports clients by reducing their apprehension towards technology and introducing them to video marketing, a crucial aspect in today’s digital commerce landscape. With attention spans diminishing, she notes that video content can significantly elevate engagement and lead generation. This episode is packed with Arba’s personal anecdotes, expert advice, and effective methodologies in leveraging modern marketing tools.

Key Takeaways:

* Solopreneurs, especially baby boomers, often face challenges with technology that Arba Cooper helps them overcome with patience and expertise.

* In the realm of digital marketing, video content particularly holds increasing value in engaging audiences and generating leads.

* Arbor emphasizes that effectively using AI tools can aid those uncomfortable with appearing on camera to still create compelling video content.

* Arba’s commitment is deeply personal, rooted in her own experiences of entrepreneurial struggles when she faced marketing challenges without adequate guidance.

* Engaging with a community of learners can enhance one’s skills in video marketing, benefiting from both novice insights and professional expertise.

Notable Quotes:

* “The person I am exactly trying to talk to is the solopreneur who is struggling particularly with their marketing.”

* “Attention span has become shorter... but you can use technology, what’s called faceless videos, or insert yourself in different parts of your video.”

* “If a person’s afraid to be on camera, my job is not to make them comfortable, it’s to show them there are other ways.”

* “We would miss out on a lot of the services and products of the solopreneurs.”

* “If they have time, I’ll give my talent.”

Resources:

* Five Questions Over Coffee - Free Stuff Vault: fivequestionsovercoffee.com/freestuff

Tune into this past episode to hear insightful discussions and practical advice on how

👍 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave your comments and questions below—for Gwen or for future guests!

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SPEAKERS

Arba Cooper, Stuart Webb

0:00:01 - (Stuart Webb): Fabulous. The countdown didn’t happen. I have no idea what’s going on today. It’s all going wrong here in the studio. It doesn’t happen. It doesn’t matter. Hi, I’m Stuart Webb and welcome back to Five Questions Over Coffee. I’m here today with the wonderful Arbor Cooper. Arbor is a well arbor. We’re going to introduce you in a moment. You are a marketeer, aren’t you? You are, you are. Now, we are just, we’re just talking about the fact that you are never going to be anybody other than Arma Cooper. So, Arbor, welcome to It’s Not Rockets.

0:00:29 - (Stuart Webb): That’s Five Questions over Coffee. I really appreciate you giving up a few minutes to be with us today. Thank you for being here. I look forward to the conversation.

0:00:39 - (Arbor Cooper): Thank you, Stuart. Thank you for having me.

0:00:42 - (Stuart Webb): Now, let’s start with the first question that I always, I always ask, who is the person that you’re trying to help? What is their problem? And please use this as a way to really sort of pinpoint exactly who it is you’re trying to talk to today.

0:01:03 - (Arbor Cooper): Yes, the person that I am exactly trying to talk to is the solopreneur who is struggling particularly with their marketing. And they need more, more guidance, more hand holding. And that’s what I do as a trainer. So you could be at any stage as a solopreneur and just getting started or maybe couple years into your business.

0:01:29 - (Stuart Webb): So, I mean, there are, there must be a lot of people out there that they’ve tried a lot of the traditional, I mean, how would you describe the problems they’ve had? What are the problems that they are that you’re trying to help them solve that they probably, they, they’ve seen podcasts, they’ve been to training courses, they probably read the book, they’ve probably written half the books. What is that? What is the specific problems you see with people like that that you, you help them to, to address?

0:01:58 - (Arbor Cooper): Well, Stuart, specifically narrowing down my niche even more is that I’ve been in technology all my life, ever since the 80s, 70s, so I’m not intimidated or overwhelmed with technology. But I’ve noticed that other baby boomers, so I’m giving a little hint as to my age. I don’t mind. My birthday, by the way, is tomorrow.

0:02:24 - (Stuart Webb): Anyway, happy birthday, Abba. Thank you for spending the eve of the birthday here.

0:02:29 - (Arbor Cooper): Yes. So particularly my niche is baby boomers and beyond who are very good in their jobs, you know, their nine to five jobs or their regular jobs, but they have either been misplaced or displaced from their jobs or have left their jobs to start their own business. And they’re behind in technology so they’re intimidated with it, they’re overwhelmed. And so yes, there’s a lot of videos you can watch, books you can read, all of that, but they really need someone like me who has the patience and will train them and bridge that gap for them with technology.

0:03:16 - (Stuart Webb): And we’ve already got, well, Perennial Life TV and we’ve also got, got another one of your friends here, Gladys, who is. Hi Gladys, we’re pleased to see you. So, so, so give us, give us a bit more of the sort of. They’re good at what they do. They’re the sort of people who are, who are, who are, who understand their market. What is it you’re actually focusing them to do?

0:03:45 - (Arbor Cooper): Well, there’s a lot of things I focus on when it comes to digital marketing, but particularly today’s talk, I’m focusing on videos and the fact that now with AI, there’s so much more you can do with videos and so much more than I can teach because it used to be that you would have to be degree, not so much degree trained in IT to be able to use the technology, but now with having someone like me who is patient and, and works with people and there’s a lot of low cost AI tools, then all you need to do is just have the time.

0:04:28 - (Arbor Cooper): And you know, I have free training classes that people can attend and then if they want a little more hand holding then they can come to book a private session with me.

0:04:40 - (Stuart Webb): So tell me, what are the impacts that you, you will. That a business owner will find by using video? Because video is, is, is becoming very important. It is highly ranked by Google. If you’ve got video on your website, it is something which is, I think, something that pretty much every business owner needs to understand. But what is the impact that you’ve seen in some of the clients you’ve helped?

0:05:01 - (Arbor Cooper): Well, what I’ve seen because I always, any, anything that I teach means that I’ve used it myself. So people’s attention span is, is becoming shorter and shorter and shorter.

0:05:15 - (Stuart Webb): I’m sorry, I’ve done what you said.

0:05:17 - (Arbor Cooper): What did you say exactly? That’s my point. So attention span has become shorter and not everybody is comfortable on camera. So you have the people that will say, you know, that you need to be on camera, people need to see you and so forth. But that’s not necessarily true because, because there are some products and services that you don’t need to see the actual person who’s providing it. You know, when you think about commercials that have been around for, for ages, you know, it’s the, the people that are doing the commercials are not necessarily the creator or the inventor of the product, but they’re helping to promote it.

0:05:59 - (Arbor Cooper): So what I have seen for myself is I’m not afraid to be on camera, but I show clients both ways, is that you can use technology, what’s called faceless videos, or you can just insert yourself in different parts of your video. So what I have seen is it has allowed me to reach other people, new clients, and get leads because they are engaged in my videos. And then even if they like it, this is something I teach in my social media training.

0:06:34 - (Arbor Cooper): If they like whatever I post, then I engage by asking. I reach out and say, what particularly did you like about that post, that video? Whatever. So that’s how I’ve seen it increase my leads and increase like the, the couple of people that are on the call today by me doing videos and posting. So.

0:06:59 - (Stuart Webb): And, and you’ve got Premier Life tv. Is. Am I saying that her name is Pam.

0:07:05 - (Arbor Cooper): Her.

0:07:06 - (Stuart Webb): Hi, Pam. What Pam says video imagery is an essential part of the messaging toolkit. Arbor does a great job of sharing these tools. So there’s a great endorsement for you there. And, and thank you, Pam, from. For saying.

0:07:18 - (Arbor Cooper): Yes, thank you.

0:07:19 - (Stuart Webb): So, so, so, so, so an essential part of the toolkit. Absolutely critical that somebody masters it. Let’s, let’s take an example of somebody who is shy to get on front of, in front of camera, which I clearly am, because you can just, you can tell what is it you’re going to do to help me overcome some of that initial fear of doing and seeing and hearing yourself, which is such actually frightening thing to do when you watch back after you’ve completed one of these things.

0:07:52 - (Arbor Cooper): Well, first of all, I don’t. My job is not to make people feel comfortable on camera because clearly one of the biggest fears of people, especially when they become an adult, is getting on camera. So as I said, it’s not necessarily that you. When, when I say video, that does not necessarily mean that you need to get on. Okay.

0:08:19 - (Stuart Webb): You can help create a video which you’re not even part of.

0:08:22 - (Arbor Cooper): Correct? Correct. And now with AI, you can, especially with women. When it comes to women. Now, I’m not one that does a lot of makeup and so forth, but you saw me playing with my hair earlier. But when it comes to women, you can get a good shot, a good day, a good hair day or whatever, and then Create an avatar now with AI of yourself. And then you can inject that into your videos if you so choose.

0:08:50 - (Arbor Cooper): But again, I’m not one that’s really pushing people to say you, you gotta get on camera because not everybody is gonna get in front of the camera or really should be in front of the camera. I know that that’s probably. There’s people that feel differently, but I’m just like, do video. That’s all I’m saying is that you need to learn how to create videos. Whether you’re in it or not is a, is a whole nother discussion.

0:09:22 - (Stuart Webb): So Arbor, we have got some, some, some landing page and things like that from into our vault. And you can go to our vault. It’s called free stuff. It’s absolutely free. You just go here. Do you just go to five questions over coffee.com forward/freestuff. You log on everything that our guests have ever given us this year. But tell us what you have put in here because it’s a great landing page and, and it’s, it’s a great offer. So tell us a little bit more about what you’ve done for, for our listeners and viewers today.

0:09:51 - (Arbor Cooper): Yes, what, what I have is actually the link to my website, which is so simple. Arbacooper.com and on there I list there’s a lot of different things that I offer. But since we’re talking about video training, then I have on there a link to join my video training. I do monthly. I have a community actually of other people who are either learning how to do videos, they’ve been doing videos. Some are professionals and help people to learn whatever stage you’re at with video.

0:10:31 - (Arbor Cooper): So what’s in there is a link to join my free monthly community and just learn more about videos.

0:10:39 - (Stuart Webb): And I’m going to make it dead easy. I’m now going to adjust what’s in our vote. If you go to five questions over coffee.com freestuff at the top under Arbor’s name, you will see that link directly. You won’t have to hunt for it on a website. It will take you straight to that free training. And thank you for that, Arbor, because I think that’s a really useful offer. But it brings me to how did you learn so much about video? How did you. You’re obviously, you like marketing, but how did you learn that video was such an important part? Was there a, a course you took, a, a book you read? Was it just a discovery that you came across that made you think, I’ve got to help people get this video thing nailed.

0:11:20 - (Arbor Cooper): Well, I mean, first of all, I’ve loved technology ever since middle school, and I’ve already confessed that was like in the 70s, 80s. So, so I, I’ve always kept my pulse on technology and I learned how to do videos, you know, like I said a couple of years ago, but as a. I started to become more prevalent and even the AI tools that I have used has become more advanced and more fun. So it’s been that I actually attend other gurus, you know, that teach video.

0:11:57 - (Arbor Cooper): And so I take what they teach and then I break it down and simplify it and teach it to the people that follow me or that come to my training. So it’s really been. I’m a lifelong learner and you have to be when you’re in technology. So it’s, it’s a combination and just trying it, I, I make the mistakes, you know, the way you can learn the best is from people that have made the mistakes and tell you what not to do, how not to eat up your AI credits.

0:12:29 - (Stuart Webb): What a great, what a great, what a great thing. Arba. As we’re coming towards the end of our time together, there must be. And I’ve just seen that Pam has let me know that obviously we haven’t got that link properly sorted out yet because we only discussed it just before we came on air. So I should be putting that link on as soon as I leave the studio. Just, just finally. Is there a question I haven’t asked you? Because we’ve talked about the wonders of video, but there must be a question. You’re thinking, well, he’s going to ask me that killer question which really nails the subject any moment now.

0:13:06 - (Stuart Webb): But I’m gonna have to be honest. I don’t know what that question is. So I’m gonna ask you to tell us what is the question I should ask you and then obviously you have to answer it for us.

0:13:13 - (Arbor Cooper): Okay. The question that I get all the time is why do I have such a passion and focus on solopreneurs that that’s not where the money is? That’s the question.

0:13:29 - (Stuart Webb): Now you want, why is it that you have such a passion for solopreneurs? Cause you’re right, they’re. They are largely very, very hard strapped for cash. And every penny counts.

0:13:41 - (Arbor Cooper): But if somebody doesn’t, then how will we get a lot of the. We would miss out on a lot of the services and products of the solopreneurs because. Just because someone might be a little cash strapped right now. Doesn’t mean that they’re not worthy of the support. Support. And personally, that’s my story, is that back in the 90s when I had a lot of money, I had a lot of money as an engineer, left my full time job, wanted to start my own business or did start my own business, but I did not understand marketing. And as you probably know, Stuart, marketing is a very predatory business and you can end up spending a lot of money turning your wheels, trying to figure out things.

0:14:33 - (Arbor Cooper): And that’s what happened to me. To the tune of house getting foreclosed, car repossessed and I lost my marriage. And so my passion is that if a entrepreneur solopreneur, if they have time, then I’ll give my talent and that’s my passion, is that just giving some of my time, some of my talent. And if they just give their time and they can do it theirself, teach a man how to fish instead of giving them a fish.

0:15:06 - (Stuart Webb): Oh, but what a wonderful message and what a wonderful way to finish. Listen, I think that’s wonderful. I think that’s truly fantastic. I’m so, I’m so grateful that you’ve spent a few minutes telling us that today. I would just like to say one thing as we come to an end and it almost, it almost goes without saying, you go find Arbor online, go and find her and, and, and take the advantage of listening to somebody who’s so passionate about this stuff.

0:15:35 - (Stuart Webb): But if you would like to talk to and, and and be available to, to come and speak to and ask questions, we have Pam today asking questions. If you go to 5questionsover Coffee.com you will find a link there to subscribe to this feed and you will find other great entrepreneurs who are coming up. I post out to people who are subscribing who’s coming up in the next in the next episode of this so that you will get a notification that tells you that somebody is coming onto the, onto the podcast and you can come and join like Pam today and ask questions. So Arpa, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us.

0:16:11 - (Stuart Webb): I really appreciate what you’ve come on and set and I do hope you continue to help as many of those entrepreneurs discover, because you’re right, video is so important in today’s marketing mix and it is badly done by most of us and you’re clearly somebody who knows how to write, how to make it happen. So thank you so much for coming on and telling us.

0:16:30 - (Arbor Cooper): Thank you, Stuart. And there was someone else too that was on today. I want to thank. It was Candace.

0:16:36 - (Stuart Webb): There was. There was. We had. We had. We had Pam and we had Gladys.

0:16:43 - (Arbor Cooper): Gladys, yes.

0:16:45 - (Stuart Webb): Yeah. You know, Gladys as well.

0:16:46 - (Arbor Cooper): Yes, yes. Yeah. That’s one thing. I knew there was two, so. Thank you.

0:16:50 - (Stuart Webb): Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pam. Thank you, Gladys. Really appreciate you being here. And listen, Alba, Pam, Gladys, you know where Arbor is, but everybody else, go check out Arbor, get it. Get a link from the, from the vault, from the free stuff and. And have a look at some of Arbor’s great stuff. It’s really great. Thank you very much indeed.

0:17:15 - (Arbor Cooper): Thank you. All right. Bye.

0:17:18 - (Stuart Webb): Bye. Bye.

Who is Gwen?

Gwen Acton, PhD, has built her career helping “rocket scientists”—the brilliant scientists, engineers, and technical experts behind today’s most innovative companies—become extraordinary leaders. With a background spanning everything from biology to technology, Gwen was inspired by the crucial roles these experts play in industries like biotech, aerospace, AI, big pharma, and government research labs. She saw that while technical leaders are essential for organizational success, many find themselves suddenly tasked with leading teams, often without the tools or training to do so. Gwen made it her mission to bridge this gap, coaching and advising growth-stage companies and R&D groups so their top technical minds can excel both as experts and as leaders.

Key Takeaways

Summary

Stuart Webb and Gwen Acton PhD discuss

* Why technical expertise doesn’t equate to leadership proficiency

* Common pitfalls technical leaders face (like micromanagement and letting go of control)

* The mindset shift required to move from individual contributor to successful team leader

* The most essential skills and behaviors for leadership in science and technology-driven organizations

* Practical advice for influencing up, engaging teams, and leading transformation

* Insights from Gwen’s career and highlights from her book, “Leadership for Scientists and Engineers”

* Audience questions on changing leaders’ minds and the hallmarks of great leadership

Whether you’re a new leader, a technical expert on the rise, or simply curious about the bridge between science and leadership, this episode delivers actionable tips and inspirational stories.

Timestamps & Overview

* 00:00 - Tech glitches and introductions:Stuart Webb kicks off, introducing Gwen Acton PhD, her background, and the episode setup.

* 01:24 - Defining the technical leader’s challenge:Gwen explains who she helps and the need for leadership skills in technical organizations.

* 04:10 - Why technical backgrounds don’t prepare you for leadership:Gwen highlights the crucial differences between technical problem-solving and managing people, and why logic alone isn’t enough for people problems.

* 07:04 - The confusion and blind spots of technical leaders:Discussion about why what worked as a technical expert often fails in leadership, and the importance of learning new interpersonal skills.

* 09:16 - Letting go and the pains of delegation:Gwen addresses micromanagement, the struggle to trust others, and methods for successful delegation in high-precision environments.

* 11:29 - One piece of leadership advice:Why great leaders ask more (and better) questions instead of always trying to provide answers.

* 13:24 - Audience Q&A – Changing minds and influencing up:Gwen shares tips for helping leaders change direction, including the power of genuine questions and one-on-one influence.

* 17:05 - Gwen’s journey from scientist to leadership expert:Personal story about her path, why group dynamics and leadership in science are so important, and practical solutions for the technical world.

* 20:20 - About the book “Leadership for Scientists and Engineers”:What readers will find inside and why it’s designed as a practical guide for technical leaders.

* 21:34 - What makes a good leader or role model?:Key traits and behaviors ranging from strategic alignment to offering feedback and motivating teams.

* 26:48 - The killer question: What separates great leaders from those who plateau?:Gwen’s reflections on lifelong learning, intentional skill development, and the humility to accept feedback.

* 29:28 - Closing remarks and staying in touch:How to subscribe for future episodes, more about Gwen, and reaching out with questions.

Resources and Links

* 📘 Gwen’s Book: “Leadership for Scientists and Engineers”

* 🆓 Free Leadership Resources:www.systemise.me/free-stuff — Grab templates, guides, and more to boost your leadership journey.

* 💡 Stay Informed:To be first to know about upcoming guests (and ask your questions live!), visit www.systemise.me/subscribe.

* 🔗 Connect with Gwen Acton PhD:Find Gwen on LinkedIn and follow for more expert tips (see show notes for the link).

👍 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave your comments and questions below—for Gwen or for future guests!

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

P.S. Loved this episode? Hit reply and let us know what resonated most

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Subscribe to our newsletter and get details of when we are doing these interviews live at www.systemise.me/subscribe

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Subscribe to the podcast at https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/podcast

Help us get this podcast in front of as many people as possible. Leave a nice five-star review at apple podcasts : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/apple-podcasts and on YouTube : https://link.thecompleteapproach.co.uk/Itsnotrocketscienceatyt!

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We help established business owners with small but growing teams:

go from feeling stuck, sceptical, and tired of wasting time and money on false promises,

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with a results-based refund guarantee: if you follow the process and it doesn’t work, we refund what you paid.

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————————————————————————————————————————————-

Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

technical leadership, rocket scientists, scientist to leader transition, leadership skills, delegation, micromanagement, influencing skills, team motivation, business leadership, technical expertise, problem solving, people management, organizational success, biotech leadership, tech company leadership, research labs, defense contractors, big pharma R&D, cross-functional teams, leadership blind spots, team ownership, decision making, senior leadership, growth stage companies, feedback in leadership, leadership mindset, communication skills, leadership for scientists, career development, leadership challenges, leadership book

SPEAKER

Gwen Acton, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:55]:

Hi, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I’ve got my coffee mug in front of me. I hope Gwen, my guest today, has got her. I’m having a bit of a laugh because as, as soon as we tried to go live, there was a technical error. And the last thing I can remember saying as I was pushing this, which hopefully didn’t come through on the, on the live stream, was why do we work with technology? But here we are. Here we are, Gwen. Welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science.

Stuart Webb [00:01:24]:

Five questions over koio, I’m looking forward enormously to talking to you. Gwen is a really inspiring leader. She works with, well, she, she is a, she’s a former scientist. She’s got a, got a very impressive, very impressive PhD and she now works with leaders in scientific and organizations like that, helping them to take the knowledge that she’s got from transitioning from being a scientist to being a business leader and helping them do the same. So I’m really looking forward to the talk today, the discussion today. So Gwen, welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:02:03]:

Thanks so much, Stuart. It’s great to be here today.

Stuart Webb [00:02:05]:

Look, I’ve just given you, I’ve just given you the build up, so perhaps you better clarify for us exactly who is the leader you’re trying to help. What is it that you bring to them and try and help them to understand that’s perhaps different to their other life when they’re trying to lead a business.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:02:25]:

Yeah. So my, I, I actually was really struck by the title of your podcast, which is it’s not rocket science because that I work with rocket scientists who have become or other brilliant scientists and engineers. Everything from PhD biologists to aerospace engineers, AI designers, you name it. Those, those folks who are highly trained as technical experts who then through no fault of their own end up as leaders either. They’re trying to accomplish things as leaders. They end up heading a group and those leaders lead to, you know, so my ideal client is our leaders or organizations that have these rocket scientists and those rocket scientists are key to the success of those organizations. So in practice, I work with growth stage biotechs and tech companies, government research labs, defense contractors, big pharma, R and D groups, any place where technical leaders are essential for success, any Place where you have these technical, these rocket scientists who are promoted into these leadership positions and need to now accomplish work through teams.

Stuart Webb [00:03:44]:

And what is it about being a scientist which somehow doesn’t quite prepare you? And I know the feeling myself as somebody that’s gone through this, it doesn’t quite prepare you for the business of leadership. What is it they’ve tried to do? What is the thing which they’ve been doing but somehow hasn’t worked for them before they seek some expertise in somebody like yourself.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:04:10]:

Yeah, I think the biggest, one of the biggest challenges when you are a technical expert is, is just not realizing how different leadership is. Right. So you. And that’s why I love the name of your podcast, it’s not Rocket Science. Both, you know, you often use that phrase not rocket science to mean it’s not difficult, which I think we would all agree. Leadership is hard because otherwise you wouldn’t have as many bad leaders out there as we have. Yeah, but the biggest. So that thing is, it’s not rocket science, it’s not technical.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:04:46]:

Right. Typically the technical experts are promoted into leadership positions based on that technical or subject matter expertise. But then all of a sudden suddenly you become, you know, the best scientists and engineers become responsible for motivating and aligning teams. So for example, a deadline is shortened and everyone in the group is complaining. Right. That’s not rocket science. But you need to be able to do that to accomplish rocket science. You need to navigate different conversations.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:05:20]:

For example, you have an underperformer. And again, it’s not rocket science, but you have to, you can’t have underperformers. If you’re going to make rockets or technology or science, you can’t have that. So how. That’s a different skill set influencing across the matrix. Right. Most scientists and engineers, you know, they’re not working on their own. They’re working across an organization, across cross functional teams and they need to get things done and not report to them.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:05:47]:

So that challenge is going from this technical expertise, which is very logical. All of a sudden, walking into a very different set of expectations and needs around leading a group, influencing, negotiating, etc. That are fundamentally different skills. And I think that is often what is overlooked is that just because you’re smart doesn’t mean, just as you’re smart at solving technical problems doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that need to be learned about leadership.

Stuart Webb [00:06:25]:

And sometimes that learning is, it is a blind spot, isn’t it? Because having spent a life being a technical expert and sometimes being lauded for that technical expertise. In fact, people looking up to you because of that technical expertise. You don’t understand why suddenly having to learn, influencing skills is such a, such a challenge. It becomes one of those, well, I just don’t understand why things are just not working the way they used to. So do you find that a lot of the time you’re dealing with people who are confused as to why what they did yesterday isn’t working for them today?

Gwen Acton PhD [00:07:04]:

Absolutely. It can be baffling. And one of the questions many technical experts have is why was that person promoted, not me? Right. Why, you know, why are these people not doing. I was just talking to a leader last week who’s like, you know, I don’t, I don’t understand why everyone in my group isn’t. Science isn’t the most important thing to them. It’s the most important thing to me. So I don’t understand why it’s not the most important thing to everybody else.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:07:33]:

I don’t understand why those investors don’t understand this data. It’s so clear, you know, why, why are they not investing, you know, giving us support for this when it’s so obvious what this data says so, or it’s, you know, why is the team not performing when, when you know, we, we need them to. So absolutely there can be this confusion and then one of the common mistakes is trying to apply those, the existing skill set for solving problems to these people problems. And so you want to come at it like, well I’ll just logically explain to my team why they need to do this and then it doesn’t work. And they’re like, but I just explained logically why we should do this and not realizing the complexity of leaders leadership, of all the non logical features that go into somebody’s decision and the dynamics of the team and how you need to be able to navigate that as well to be a successful leader.

Stuart Webb [00:08:40]:

Yeah, sure. And it’s something that I think it’s often not just the technical, it’s not just learning, relearning those sort of skills that haven’t been taught before, but it’s also having to understand that the technical skills now have to be passed to somebody else to do, doesn’t it? The letting go because you’re now into lead an organization. But you can no longer be that bottleneck. The one person understands all of the technology. That can often be another bottleneck that such leaders need to sort of understand how they, how they pass that knowledge down.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:09:16]:

Yeah. The biggest complaint I hear and I’ve surveyed Multiple thousands, many thousands of technical leaders about what they are frustrated with in their leaders. And the number one complaint is micromanagement.

Stuart Webb [00:09:32]:

Yeah.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:09:32]:

And micromanagement, I truly believe, comes with the absolute best of intentions. It’s a desire because science and technology require precision and, you know, you can’t fluff around or, you know, massage things. There’s. It has to be done correctly. And so when you were a leader, when you were an individual contributor, you would just make sure everything got done to your standards and you’d stay late if you needed to. You would just work until it got done to the quality you thought it should be. And then you become a leader. And all of a sudden if you make that decision to have everybody do it to the quality level you’re used to and just work late, you’re making decisions for a group of people, not just for yourself.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:10:21]:

And that can have implications. But secondly, I think it’s often not appreciated just how challenging delegation is when it is complex and when that quality precision needs to be maintained. So how are you supposed to find the time to train someone to do it? How do you know whether to trust them? So the good news is you can. There are specific skills, specific ways of doing this that technical leaders can learn that will make it much better for them and for their rewards to get work done and not have to do everything themselves. There’s a real tendency to just try and do it themselves because they want to make sure it gets done. Well.

Stuart Webb [00:11:07]:

I guess this leads me to my sort of, my next question really, Graham, which is if you have to give one piece of advice, one valuable piece of advice to a leader, can you, can you, can you do that in, in a, in a simple way? Are there things that you can recommend that they do in order to sort of start the journey to understand exactly how they do this?

Gwen Acton PhD [00:11:29]:

Yeah, one, one is a mindset if you’re a leader, which is to stop trying to be the smartest problem solver in every circumstance or every conversation and start asking better questions. And this is actually very relevant to delegation because you don’t necessarily need to tell them exactly how to do things if you have the right questions to ask them. You ask them questions like, for example, how are you planning to do this? And that sounds really obvious. But without explicitly suggesting this, most of us don’t do that. We just assume they either understand or they don’t. Instead of getting more information about how the person we’re delegating to plans to accomplish something, or just in general asking questions about what other People’s intent is, what are you trying to accomplish here? Asking the group, what are our assumptions? Even asking questions like what am I missing? To folks, asking questions is powerful. First of all, you learn more. You get better ideas and learn more.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:12:38]:

So that’s just, that’s just a basic. It also can really help leaders have to make a lot of decisions and it can really help with decision overload for leaders. It can help distribute some of those decisions. But it also has this wonderful and surprising effect of getting more engagement and building stronger team ownership. Your team wants to do a good job, wants to contribute. So when you ask those kind of questions, not only are you learning from them, but they are able to contribute in a way that they feel more, you know, they, they are more motivated and have more ownership on the project.

Stuart Webb [00:13:24]:

So we’ve had a question come in from one of the people that’s watching us at the moment. Gwen, I don’t know if you can read it there on the screen, but what John wants to know is, do you think it’s hard to get leaders to change their mind, to change direction once they’ve made up their minds?

Gwen Acton PhD [00:13:42]:

Yeah, that’s an amazing question. And I think that really depends on the leader. I certainly have met leaders who struggle with being willing to change their minds. I mean, I’ve seen leaders across the spectrum, some the best leaders, are willing to question their assumptions and revisit and look at things again. I’ve often found sometimes it’s the more senior leaders, especially in the small growth companies I’ve seen, that can sometimes get very stuck in thinking that they’re right despite the evidence. So one of a frequent topic people ask me is how do I influence leaders above me? If I don’t believe in their decision, how do I influence it? And I’m going to come back to that typical, you know, that suggestion I just made a minute ago about asking questions. One of the most powerful ways to change the opinion of somebody else is to ask them questions. And genuine questions, not challenging.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:14:45]:

Well, ask them why did they choose. Like if you think they should have chosen A and they chose B, you know, ask them why did you choose B? You know, really want to understand your reasons. And sometimes you can see they actually have some very good reasons. Sometimes you see that there’s a flaw in their thinking. And so you have the possibility of saying, well, actually, you know, the data doesn’t suggest that you’re relying on an old set of data or an old set of conclusions that we have moved on from. So, yes, and no. One of the hardest places for a leader to change their mind is in front of a group. So you’re much better off if you want to change a leader’s mind to have a one on one conversation, to go at it with respect and questions, assume they probably had a good reason for it, for good reasons, and try and get beneath what their reasons are so you can uncover whatever might be a disconnect with that.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:15:43]:

But yes, that can be a real challenge when you see a leader in a making a decision that you don’t agree with and they won’t change their mind. Sometimes they have information you don’t have. I remember there have been times in my career where a leader made a baffling decision and it was only later that I found out a senior to me that they had information, knew something that I didn’t and I failed to recognize. I was just, I was just missing some of the information.

Stuart Webb [00:16:13]:

And thank you for that question, John. You may be watching this on repeat, thinking, I would love to have asked Gwen a question when she was live. So if you do have that, please drop a question in the comments below. Gwen will be looking out for any comments and she will come back and she will answer them or if she doesn’t, I will, I will point them in the direction to make sure that Gwen does it. So if you haven’t had your question answered live, make sure you drop one in the comments below us and we will come back and answer those questions. Because when you’ve got somebody with the sort of expertise and skill set that Gwen’s got, take advantage of that when she’s giving up free time in order to answer these questions. So thank you for that question, John, really appreciate it. And do you, do you, do you want to give us a little bit.

Stuart Webb [00:17:05]:

Gwen, can you, how did you get from, from what you were doing as a, as a, as a biologist, I mean, give us a little bit of that. But how did you get from that to what you’re doing now?

Gwen Acton PhD [00:17:20]:

So yeah, so Stuart, I was, I was trained a PhD scientist at MIT, did bench work and at some point I realized the academic track was not my passion, it wasn’t how I wanted to pursue it. And it took me a while to realize that one of the ways I am still a scientist at heart and one of the things I became very aware of is that scientists, engineers, no one essentially these days does their work entirely on their own. We are all working in groups, right? We’re at the minimum, we’re sharing data, we’re sharing Information, we’re sharing equipment, we’re sharing resources, we’re sharing space, et cetera. As soon as you have a group performing a task or interacting interdependent with each other in any, in any way, you start to have leadership issues. And what I saw when I began was that, that scientists and engineers think differently in many ways than many other folks. They’re more logical, they’re more fact based. They want to know the reasons why. They want to have specific practical suggestions for how to accomplish them.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:18:37]:

And as a PhD scientist out of MIT and having had leadership experience, I realized this was a way that we could make a significant impact on science and improve the practice of science and technology. Because they’re very, very, I mean, they’re obviously different. There are many overlapping issues there that we could improve the practice of technology and science through better leadership practices that are targeted for what? For specifically for being working in a technical environment. So, for example, there are many common solutions like build trust. And I’m like, I, you know, you can’t, if you tell a scientist or engineer, build trust, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have meaning, right? It’s because none of us, first of all, it’s not a well defined term, secondly, that doesn’t involve specific suggestions. So I realized I had a unique perspective here of being a scientist and also being trained in leadership and being able to bring that message so that we could have better science and technology which will benefit us all. And I do believe it is having an impact in how we practice, how we practice science and technology for the better.

Stuart Webb [00:20:01]:

I know we’ve got a shot on screen of your, your book that you’ve, you’ve written and I know this is, and we will put a link to Gwen’s book. But Gwen, do you want to give us just a highlight of what you tried to capture in your book before we come to another question from John?

Gwen Acton PhD [00:20:20]:

Yeah, so the, the book is Leadership for Scientists and Engineers. It came out about last year and it is designed specifically. My goal here is that any scientist or leader through who, through no fault of their own ends up in a leadership position, that somebody hands them this book so that they understand what the expectations are. I’ve had, it’s got over 80 five star reviews on Amazon. It’s designed to be very readable. You can read, you can pick up any chapter. That’s how I like to take in information. There are many, many specific suggestions, many examples, many specific things to say and do in certain situations, but also perspective as to why certain things are Important when you are a leader that are different than being an individual contributor and why you have to think about it differently, why you have to learn new skills, what are some of the, you know, communication.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:21:23]:

It’s different when you’re a leader. People hear you differently than when we

Stuart Webb [00:21:27]:

will, we will make sure that the link to Gwen’s book is in the show notes for this show. But we’ve got another question from John with what kind of behavior do you think is the most important for a good leader or role model and not allow you to sort of spend the next two days answering that? Because I think that’s, I think that’s a really difficult thing to answer.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:21:53]:

Well, I think it’s partly dependent on the organization, what you’re trying to accomplish. So if you have, if, if so if you’re at the, if you’re at a senior level in an organization, if you’re at a CEO, you know, some of the things you need to model are making sure to motivate the employees, making sure everybody knows and aligns around what is important that organization. So that is incredibly important. When you’re at the senior level, it’s important to think strategically, not just, not just react, but to be proactive and think about where’s the organization going to be five or 10, you know, whatever amount of time I work with companies that are thinking very, very things change so much, they’re thinking about a year, two years. But you know, two years, five years, 10 years, whatever it might be. So that is, that is at the top of the organization. If you are a frontline manager, meaning you have individual contributors as your reports or your, as your team, then some of the behavior that’s really important is to make sure you support and you know, support their, their, their careers, make sure they understand what is going on, mentor them under, make sure they are supported in how they do their jobs. And you know, you use the term good leader, which I love and I actually one of the exercises we do in workshops, we have a leadership boot camp workshop and one of the things we do is we do a brainstorm is what is good versus bad leadership.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:23:31]:

And I actually have a list in the book about some of what folks, you know, some of the characteristics that they say and technical expertise is expected for a technical leader, but it is only a small fraction. I’m just trying to find the page here. Some good, effective, good leadership skills. It’s communicating well, offering useful feedback, conveying a compelling vision, motivating and inspiring. Those are just a few examples I’ve Again, pulled thousands of technical experts and they all agree on these are good leadership. So important for a good leader is to make sure, I mean, it’s complex like you said, talk for days and make sure they’re getting work done, but also doing it in a way like I’m a firm believer. We sometimes think that leadership either has to be like, I have to be firm and unpleasant or I have to be so nice but things don’t get done. And I’m like, no, I don’t.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:24:32]:

I think you can be both fair and firm, get things done, but also have teams and groups really excited about the work. Right. In fact, most people are motivated to do a good job. Like that is their biggest motivation. If you’re in a science or technical group, the folks in it, most of them are incredibly motivated by doing a good job. And the thing that’s demotivating is when you can’t do a good job. So one of the most important things a leader can do is make sure the team has the resources, the support, the information, the clarity, the feedback, etc. So that they can do a good job.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:25:14]:

And I think that is one of the aspects of good leadership. But again, I sort of wrote the whole book. I love the question is actually about good leadership because just because you’re promoted into a position doesn’t mean you’re a good leader. Right? Is right. Just because you’re the CEO, just because you’re the founder, just because you’re an entrepreneur doesn’t mean your director, vp, whatever you are, your title doesn’t mean you are good at what you do. And I think that’s important to remember. Right. It’s just, it’s not just your title, it’s what, how, how good are you actually at, at, at being a leader?

Stuart Webb [00:25:52]:

Brilliant. Gwen, I’ve got, I’ve got one question left. Really. And thank you once again, John from, from Holland for asking those questions and I really appreciate you putting them in the comments. As I say, if there are more comments, please drop them below. Gwen, Will, will get on to those and we’ll answer them in as soon as she. As soon as you can, but go. And I’ve got one, one final question to ask you.

Stuart Webb [00:26:16]:

You must be thinking at the moment, this has been an interesting discussion, but he hasn’t asked me that one killer question, which actually is sort of the real question that everybody should ask me. Somebody who understands how, how you make great leaders of scientists and, and, and, and, and people who have a background as being a great technical expert. So I’M gonna have to be honest. I don’t know the question. So therefore, I’m gonna have to ask you what is the question I should have asked you? And once you have told us what the question is, you better answer it for us as well.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:26:48]:

Sure. Excellent. And I love that question. And the question I was thinking about here was, what separates the. You know, what separates technical leaders who plateau or aren’t great leaders from those who become truly excellent transformational leaders? And I think there are two aspects of that. One is a willingness to learn, and. And the second piece is intentionally developing those leadership skills. People often mistakenly think I’m either born a leader or I’m not, but the evidence suggests completely otherwise.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:27:26]:

There are specific set of skills we can learn to become much better leaders. The best leaders I have ever known were willing to look at their blind spots. They were willing to be honest about what they created, could and couldn’t do, and their strengths and weaknesses, and then set about intentionally trying to improve what they could. And so I. The best leaders, honestly, I have seen. Take, take. You know, we’ll sit in. You know, sometimes I’m working with a group of leaders who have just transitioned, technical folks who have just transitioned to leadership.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:28:02]:

And I’ve often had CEOs in those rooms and just sitting there listening and trying to figure out do I have any gaps, you know, in. In my knowledge that I can fill in here. And some of the worst leaders I’ve seen, or the ones who plateau, should I say, are ones that I’m like, they’re above learning about leadership because they think. They. They. They think, well, I’m the vp, so I must be good, right? Because that’s what my title is, so I must have done things right. And all I can think of is, you know, as. As a scientist or an engineer or, you know, just as a.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:28:38]:

As a curious person. It’s like, can we do it better? Right? Do we want to be satisfied with what we have? Just because you’ve achieved what you have doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it better. And so constantly questioning what could be better. And part of that is being willing to listen to feedback.

Stuart Webb [00:28:59]:

Brilliant. Gwen, I’ve got to thank you very much for spending a few minutes with us and doing this. One quick thing from me, if you would like to. To hear about the sort of people that we get onto this show and. And come on and talk about these things. I mean, these people are giving up free time and giving you free advice and free. Frankly, who doesn’t want somebody to do that. So if you’d like to do that, just go to the link that’s on screen now.

Stuart Webb [00:29:28]:

Www.systemize.me. subscribe. There’s a simple form there, asks for two things. Your first name, your email address. That’s all it’ll do. And then once a week, you’ll get an email from me saying who’s coming up on this show so that you can do as John did during today, ask live questions of people like Gwen and get live answers to their questions. And who doesn’t want somebody helping you do that with your business problems? Gwen, I’ve got to thank you for being here today. Just doing what you have done, which is answering questions, telling us about this.

Stuart Webb [00:30:00]:

I really love some of the stuff you’ve done. And if, if, if we will be putting into the show notes, links to your book and things like that so people can get to know more about you. We’ll also put more about where you can find Gwen on LinkedIn. Follow her and you’ll get some really great advice coming, coming from Gwen. So thank you, Gwen, for coming on and spending a few minutes with us today.

Gwen Acton PhD [00:30:24]:

Thank you so much, Stuart. It’s been great being here and I loved, you know, just great questions. So thank you so much.

Stuart Webb [00:30:30]:

Thank you,

Gwen Acton PhD [00:30:44]:

Who is Sharon?

Sharon Kennedy is a business leader and consultant who specializes in helping high-achieving leadership teams reach their goals. With a systemic approach, Sharon works with successful and ambitious individuals who find themselves at a crossroads—where progress seems more difficult than it should be despite their capability and intelligence. By focusing on aligning organizational goals with effective strategies, Sharon guides her clients to greater clarity and collective achievement, emphasizing business-level solutions over individual fixes. Her work is driven by a commitment to turning challenges into opportunities for alignment and business growth.

Key Takeaways

In this insightful episode, Sharon Kennedy shares her expertise on how leaders and businesses can gain better alignment in their work, especially when navigating complexity and uncertainty. She explains why many high-achieving individuals and leadership teams feel like something is “missing,” even when they’re doing so much right—and how stepping back, gaining clarity, and focusing on systemic coherence transforms both people and organizations.

Key topics include:

* Identifying the Type of Client Helped: Sharon discusses the kinds of ambitious leaders and teams she works with, who often find their progress harder than it should be and benefit from a systemic, not just individual, approach.

* What Clients Have Tried Before: Many have read books, taken courses, or followed common advice, but struggle to see the results because true change requires personal insight and a shift in perspective.

* The Power of Lightbulb Moments: Sharon explains that breakthroughs aren’t about doing things “wrong,” but about discovering new ways of seeing challenges and embracing novel solutions.

* Sharon’s Process at Engage and Prosper: From open, candid diagnostics to supporting genuine business-wide alignment, Sharon covers her approach to lasting organizational change.

* Valuable Takeaways: The importance of identifying areas of repeated friction, why strategy often fails to translate into reality, and why real coherence beats great intentions every time.

* Inspiration & Influence: Sharon shares her influences, including Rory Sutherland and Simon Sinek, and reflects on what human behavior teaches us about creativity, bravery, and leadership.

* The Killer Question: How do you know when your organization lacks coherence—and what can you do about it?

Timestamps Overview

* [00:00:31–00:01:15] Introduction of Sharon Kennedy and her background in talent and neuro-inclusion

* [00:01:27–00:03:22] The characteristics of Sharon’s ideal clients and her focus on business systems, not just individuals

* [00:03:23–00:05:07] What clients have tried previously and why change requires personal insight and self-determination

* [00:07:10–00:09:18] Sharon’s process at Engage and Prosper: diagnostics, clarity benchmarking, and identifying points of friction in the business

* [00:11:10–00:11:46] Why company values and real behaviors don’t always align—and what to do about it

* [00:12:45–00:16:27] Sharon’s personal journey, influences, and what really prompted her approach to leadership coaching and coherence

* [00:17:12–00:19:22] The “killer question”: Signs your organization or team lacks coherence, and what key indicators (like repeated unresolved issues) to look for

Don’t forget: If you want to connect, ask questions, or get notified about upcoming guests like Maria subscribe to the newsletter here. You only need your first name and email—easy as (coffee) pie!

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

neuroinclusion, talent development, innovation, education, high-growth sectors, leadership alignment, coaching, confidence building, skill development, business coherence, systemic approach, candidate-to-company pathway, fragmentation, fresh perspectives, clarity, diagnostic tools, Clarity benchmark, employee engagement, operational systems, team behavior, AI integration, onboarding challenges, early career hires, job fit, organizational congruence, company culture, values alignment, productivity, absenteeism, staff turnover, workplace coherence

SPEAKER

Sharon Kennedy, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:00]:

Don’t mess me about now. Now is not the time to mess me about. Hi and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science, 5 questions over coffee. I’m here with— this is my coffee, by the way. I’m here with, uh, Sharon, and she has got coffee as well in front of her. Sharon Kennedy is a, um, a coach, uh, helping to develop future talent. Uh, she’s, uh, works with people who are looking to develop high potential individuals in innovation, talent development, education. She’s helping people build skills, confidence, and insight necessary to move in the fast-moving, high-growth sectors, particularly interested in people with neuro-inclusion in their development.

Stuart Webb [00:01:16]:

So Sharon, welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science, 5 Questions Over Coffee, and thanks for being a guest.

Sharon Kennedy [00:01:21]:

Thanks for having me.

Stuart Webb [00:01:24]:

So tell me a little—

Sharon Kennedy [00:01:25]:

Perfect.

Stuart Webb [00:01:27]:

Let’s, let’s just explore a little bit. So if we’re looking at the sort of the, the person you’re trying to help, what is the, uh, what are the characteristics? What are the— what is it you, you are— you would say are the sort of, um, ideal client, ideal person you’re trying to help with this neuroinclusivity, building their confidence, uh, in this fast-paced environment of education and employment today?

Sharon Kennedy [00:01:50]:

Well, I suppose it’s— I suppose the first thing to say, and I understand why you’ve positioned it the way you have. But I— as much as I work on an individual level, I really come at it from a business level. That’s what we’re trying to achieve. And so, so the individual leader or individuals in this leadership team are, generally speaking, going to be quite successful and achieving lots of great things, lots of ambition, lots of intelligence, capability, and things like that. It’s more that they’re at a point where it seems harder than it should be. And they’re still pushing forward. And I think really, for me, what I try to do, and, and we as a business, is about helping them find alignment in what they’re trying to achieve and how they’re trying to achieve it. So it’s more of a systemic approach that we take to it.

Sharon Kennedy [00:02:38]:

So whilst all the things you described are exactly what we also do, you know, clarity, confidence, talent, uh, you know, development, and the sort of candidate-to-company pathway and making that the optimum that it can be. Ultimately, we’re about trying to make sure that we’re helping leaderships and companies be more coherent in their approach so that the consistency is there and the inner alignment is there as well. So if you ask me about the type of people, they’re going to be very intelligent, capable people, but they’re just kind of— they know something’s missing, but they can’t really work out what that is. Um, and so for us, it’s normally sort of fragmentation in their thinking, really, and trying to help them sort of stand back sometimes and then look at things with fresh eyes.

Stuart Webb [00:03:23]:

So, so that’s interesting. So, so tell me, um, what they’ve tried before. What is it they’ve been attempting to do before they come across somebody like you can help them with that alignment? Have they, have they done books, courses, all of the above?

Sharon Kennedy [00:03:36]:

All of that. I, I’ve— well, and just lived on the planet, you know, and, and gained experience and done lots of things brilliantly right. And done lots of other things that they, they don’t quite know why it’s not worked. And I think, I suppose it’s sometimes it’s like, you know, we grow up hearing the adages of, like, can’t see the wood for the trees, or, you know, you’re in the trenches rather than— and working in the business than on the business, all those great phrases. But I suppose actually sometimes it’s, it’s about helping people sometimes to think differently when they don’t know how to think differently. Because it, you know, they’ll— yeah, we’ve— again, I know I’m using the clichés, but the Definition of insanity: keep doing the same thing, expect a different result. And I suppose all these phrases and words don’t always mean very much until you actually get to the point of where the penny drops. Somebody says something in a certain way, or enough things happen, and you just kind of go, I, I get it now.

Sharon Kennedy [00:04:27]:

It— that now makes sense to me in my way. And the problem is we all think differently. None of us think the same. None of us have got the same life experiences or talents or skills. We’re all individual mashes of lots of, you know, life and experience and personality and DNA. And, you know, we’re just unique individuals. And so what might be the penny dropping for one person is, you know, is it happens in a different way for somebody else at a different time. So it really— I know that might sound a bit ambiguous, but I think it’s a bit like— that’s what I’ve learned through doing coaching a lot of the time, is the individual has to self-determine their own insight All anybody else ever does is facilitate that being able to happen.

Stuart Webb [00:05:09]:

It’s interesting. So, so it is— it, it— there’s a moment, there’s a, there’s a point at which something happens, whether that be a difficult situation or a sudden realization that, that you’ve been doing it wrong all this time, which produces that clarity of thought suddenly that I need help.

Sharon Kennedy [00:05:29]:

Yeah, I don’t even think wrong is not— and I’m not picking— you’re not being critical, but wrong isn’t the right word because I suppose it’s just we all— everything is isn’t it? All through our life we’re trying and we’re experimenting, we’re exploring, and we’re doing things differently. I think it’s just sometimes somebody can have those, you know, whether you call them like light bulb moments or insights, whatever, you know, fat bombs, whatever you want to call them. A number of things happen, you know, whether it’s a— you read a piece of content, you have a conversation with someone, you watch something. Sometimes it’s just enough things that happen relatively that, that your brain— I mean, our brains are amazing. I’ve done a lot of stuff around neuroscience, and, you know, when we always think we have those light bulb moments, those light bulb moments are not just suddenly epiphanies. They’re, they’re our subconscious kind of going, maybe got the answer here if you want to maybe sit down for a bit, do things a bit differently, and listen to me, actually. And that’s really what I help to sort of do as well, you know. That’s what coaching is, and that’s what sort of like systems designers and systems thinking and trying to get people to sort of sometimes stand back and, and just re-look at things with new perspectives, different perspectives, because it’s really hard to do that, you know, because we take comfort and confidence in familiarity and, and knowing what we’ve always done.

Sharon Kennedy [00:06:45]:

And it might have always worked before, but we’re in different times, and every so often you have to stand back and reappraise and reflect on what you have now, because it’s, it’s a new world all the time, regularly, you know. We’re in another industrial revolution or whatever you want to call it. So So I think it is just having the confidence and being brave enough, really, sometimes to kind of go, is there maybe a different way to look at this?

Stuart Webb [00:07:10]:

So tell me, we’ve reached the sort of, uh, my third question then, and it’s, it’s about the valuable, uh, advice that you’d give. So talk to me a little bit about two things, one of which is, so what do you do? How do you bring the outcome that those people are looking for? And secondly, is there a piece of valuable advice that you’d give to our, our listeners at the moment? And yeah, I’d welcome any comments from anybody either listening in the future in the recording or as we’re listening to us live now. If you’ve got questions, let Sharon know what those questions are so that we can, we can pose them to her. But Sharon, start with that first thing. What is it you would actually do within, within your business, Engage and Prosper, to help them overcome that challenge?

Sharon Kennedy [00:07:56]:

So I suppose the first thing we do is have a proper conversation, uh, and explore really what is happening in their business, what, what frictions and areas they’re finding either repeatedly failing or frustrating or just costly, or, you know, they’ll, they’ll know. Every business will have its own version of that, and it might be a number of them, it might just be one area. So we have really open, candid chats around— structural, structured chat, but it still is a chat, it is a conversation to understand and explore that. And it does require a bit of trust and openness and it’s obviously confidential. So that’s the first thing we would do. If the next step is the right next step, we would run a Clarity benchmark, which is a diagnostic tool we use, which we’ve created around understanding the whole element of clarity in systems, people, and behavior, because it is structural, as we say. But, but the, the sort of free advice, if you like, that I would say to anybody on that call or otherwise is to to start thinking about where you’re seeing repeated friction in the business, where things are— you’re having to revisit them on a regular basis because you thought you dealt with them at that meeting, but something isn’t— it’s just not changed, or it’s not landing, or it— people don’t really know what they should be doing about what’s been agreed, um, because that’s really, again, where the coherence is not really there. It’s not— it’s not landed, or it’s not clear, or it’s not being driven in a clear way.

Sharon Kennedy [00:09:19]:

Um, and again, it’s, it’s quite difficult to give examples because that might be very diff— different in every business, but it might be, you know, a high turnover of staff for a particular type of role or a particular type of hire. Um, so early years, early career hires are regularly quite hard at the moment to sort of, um, engage and onboard and successfully, you know. Some of that might be because it’s the wrong person and job fit. Some of it might be the job needs to evolve and move. Um, and I think you’ve gone now, so I feel a bit worried that you may have, um, just disappeared. And if this is still live— no, you’re there.

Stuart Webb [00:09:59]:

I was merely focusing on you, Sharon, as you were talking about such an intense subject. I wanted people to, to focus on you rather than seeing me making gudie.

Sharon Kennedy [00:10:08]:

Tell me you were going to do it anyway. So, so that, so that’s really— so it could be different stages of either people coming in, or it could be different systems that you’re using. And again, with AI, oh my goodness, you know, people are overwhelmed with it. I think they don’t quite know in some organizations and businesses how much they should be using, what they should be using it for, how they should be using it and integrating it. So there, there is— there are a whole, uh, plethora of areas and issues that could be the problem or the challenge for why the organization just isn’t achieving what it knows it could and should. Um, so I think that’s really the sort of free advice that I would suggest, really. Um, And it could be operational systems, team behavior, attitudes. I mean, you know, coming from an employee engagement, um, business and, you know, background, which I did for a long, long time, a lot of— a tiny example would be about, you know, having behaviors on the wall and these great values as a company culture and saying what it’s like to work for us and we’re brilliant and we’re this and we’re that and all the great honest sincere things, but not necessarily living by those values.

Sharon Kennedy [00:11:10]:

And it becomes a bit rhetoric rather than reality. So I think it— that’s just one example of what I’m trying to convey, is that great intent and a great strategy written down isn’t necessarily what the reality is or what the lived experience is. And, and I think ultimately that’s, that’s really what we’re trying to do— some, you know, audits, housekeeping, whatever you want to call it— and then really move forward with a really coherent plan and also that individual congruence. So that internal alignment between the— what you want to be as a leader and as a business owner, and also what you are actually then delivering as a, as a leadership team.

Stuart Webb [00:11:47]:

Brilliant. I will now come back into screen so that you can see me, but I wanted people to focus on you when you were talking about that because I think it’s important. Um, Sharon, thank you. And, and just to remind people, um, you’ll see at the bottom of the screen I’ve put where we put our guests’ contact details, their offers, uh, things like landing pages where you can go and get free things from them, uh, in systemize.me/free-stuff. And we’ll have links to Sharon’s website, Engage and Prosper. Yeah, got some downloads, got some downloads that we will be putting into our vault so that you can get hold of those and get— and hear some of the great wisdom that Sharon has on this. So, Sharon, that kind of, uh, you mentioned it once, and I presume, uh, it is from this background of, of, uh, of employing engagement, um, that you, you came to this realization. But it can’t just have been employee engagement.

Stuart Webb [00:12:45]:

There must have been a light bulb moment, a book, a course, a personal experience. What was it that sort of suddenly made you realize that some of this stuff is related to Well, uh, these, these moments that sort of, you know, you now can help to step in and, and to help people to understand better.

Sharon Kennedy [00:13:04]:

Yeah, I mean, I, I did do a research around this question of like, you know, should I come up with a really clever author and things like that?

Stuart Webb [00:13:13]:

Please don’t do clever, we don’t do clever.

Sharon Kennedy [00:13:16]:

Well, what I suppose I came down to really was the fact that, you know, I’m the, the right side of 50, if that’s the right phrase, but you know, I’m 52 now and I think, you know, I’ve had lots of chapters in my career, lots of working with lots of different, you know, great bosses, great leaders, um, and either, you know, been to events and been inspired to get inspired by people every day. And, um, I suppose what I’ve recognized through my own observations, pattern recognition, whatever you want to call it, is that when leaders are sort of inconsistent, um, and it’s hard to actually see consistency in someone if you’re not seeing enough communication, interacting enough, it takes a long time to layer knowledge and understand who somebody is or what business is and all those sort of things. So for me, it’s about when things are fragmented, you know, if leadership is fragmented, if how the business works is fragmented, how it communicates, how it does things. And it, you know, and some people might use the word chaos, and I don’t really mean chaos because I’m not suggesting any business is chaotic, but I do think we think often it’s more organized than it actually is because a lot of things are tacit knowledge, um, things just get done. We don’t always know who does what until person leaves that did it. Um, so it’s things like that really. It’s sometimes just having some order with some scope for creativity, innovation, all those sort of things. But for me, it’s not one person, it’s not one thing.

Sharon Kennedy [00:14:42]:

You know, there’s some brilliant names I could drop. I mean, Rory Sutherland, I think, is just fabulous. Whenever you— you know, the opposite of a great idea is another great idea. You know, I think that, like, you just go around an eternal loop on that phrase alone. You know, it just proves that there’s never one right or wrong way of doing anything. There’s many, many ways of doing it. Um, you know, Simon Sinek, you know, he had big influence on me many years ago. Um, Dan Pink, you know, um, I think— trying to think of one of the other big readers, and I can’t think of his name now, one of the authors on marketing.

Sharon Kennedy [00:15:11]:

Um, his name’s gone for me, but, um, it might come back in a minute. But loads of people have really inspired me with what they’ve known, what they’ve seen, what they’ve realized. And, and I think really what really inspires me is human behavior. So everybody inspires me because I get to see how they think, how they work, how they manage things, how they overcome things, and how they do things differently. Because it’s doing the different things that allow you then to do things differently, which I know might sound really obvious, but, you know, other people being brave enough to do things differently allows you to recognize that there isn’t a right or wrong. And so therefore, people can’t really judge you for your approach because it’s just how you think and what you’re prepared to try. Um, and sometimes happy accidents come out of that, and other times— I think Rory Southern gives an example of a, of a, of a about a bench, you know, that when people sadly pass and people put a memorial bench there. And I’m not going to do his talk justice, but I recommend everyone watches it.

Sharon Kennedy [00:16:05]:

And he talks about, you know, where you do need a bench, there’s never any— a bench, you know, nobody ever sat there for a bench to then be put there, you know, or, or things like that. But anyway, you know, I’m not— so I’m not doing him justice, but, you know, he does, uh, he thinks of some things in a very, um, creative way. And I think it’s that creativity that allows us to, to do things in a better way. Sometimes like brilliance, and sometimes it’s a learning that we grow from, like in an invention, you know.

Stuart Webb [00:16:34]:

That’s brilliant. Um, Sharon, I, I guess, I guess I’m left with only one question, uh, and it’s the question that, that, that I often, I often ask in this, which is what is the question that I should have asked that I haven’t yet, that, that sort of killer question that brings it all together, which gives us a neat way of sort of, you know, trying to encapsulate all this. And, and I can’t think of what that question is, so I guess I have to rely upon you to think about that question. So what’s that, what’s that killer question? What’s that question I should have asked you which I haven’t yet? Um, and obviously once you’ve asked, uh, once you’ve asked the question, you better answer it for us because I don’t know the answer.

Sharon Kennedy [00:17:12]:

Well, I think we’ve, we’ve covered a lot of it already, really, but I suppose the question was, was You know, how do you know when an organization lacks coherence? And I suppose as a, a leader or a manager in it yourself, it’s going to be when, you know, some of what I’ve said before, you know, when that issue just keeps coming back up, it’s still not resolved, or the accountability for making it resolved and solved, it just— it doesn’t, doesn’t land. That person doesn’t own it, or that team or department or whoever it is, supplier, whatever it might be, because obviously there’s multi-parts of a business running well and growing. Um, it just could be a repetitive issue that you think has got fixed and then it’s back again. Um, and, and if people are compensating, I think that’s the real deep pit, isn’t it? Some things actually work, but not through or without a lot of effort or a lot of being pulled out of shape and, and stress. Um, a burnout, you know, or— I mean, yeah, one of the big dashboard KPIs that most businesses always look at is absenteeism. You know, sickness, uh, you know, turnover. All those— the stats are always normal ones to look at. But I suppose really it’s about tenure and productivity for me, you know.

Sharon Kennedy [00:18:22]:

Are people staying because you’re a good employer and it’s all working relatively well, i.e., that it’s in congruence for them as an individual working for your business? And as a, as a company, are you in coherence with how you should be and could be operating?, so that those KPIs, you know, are actually in a good balance. It’s never going to be a perfect world, but, but if you keep having to revisit the same stuff, something’s not working. And I suppose it, you know, and I’m making that sound really simple because of course all those individuals are trying to resolve it, but there’s, there’s obviously got to be a different way to attack it because maybe like with a lot of business development, when a client comes to you and says, this is our problem, it’s normally something else that’s actually the problem, not what they think it is. And that’s because often they just don’t get the time or the luxury to be able to sit back and actually look at things with fresh perspectives and, and ask different questions.

Stuart Webb [00:19:22]:

Yeah, uh, Sharon, uh, yeah, great perspective. Uh, thank you so much for causing us to just stop for a moment and think about some of those things. And, uh, I encourage you, uh, listening, uh, listening to the recording, uh, drop into the comments below this your questions to Sharon. She will, she will be able to get back to you and answer them because I think that’s important that you get questions like this answered. Um, and for me, I just have one tiny little ask, and that is, um, if you’ve enjoyed this, even if you haven’t, um, excuse me, uh, please go to www.systemize.me.

Sharon Kennedy [00:20:04]:

That’s s-y-s-t-e-m-i-s-e.me/subscribe.

Stuart Webb [00:20:09]:

There’s a simple form there that just gives you, uh, asks you for your name, uh, your email address, and that means you can get onto the mailing list where I send out information about who’s coming up in this week’s podcast recording. And you can get it then, and, uh, you also get the copy of the recording when it comes out. So Sharon, excuse me again. Thank you so much. Thank you for just spending a few minutes with us. Now, uh, we’ve had— we would appear the people are now leaving the live, uh, live recording, so they have had their questions answered, which is important. Thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. I look forward to, uh, to, to seeing you answer those questions that come in on the chat below the, the podcast.

Stuart Webb [00:20:53]:

So thank you for spending some time with us.

Sharon Kennedy [00:20:55]:

Thanks for having me, Stuart. I really enjoyed it.

Who is Maria?

Maria Dolores: A Life Guided by Seven Principles

Maria Dolores’s journey is deeply anchored in her belief in seven guiding principles. From an early age, she embraced the right to her body, her emotions, and her thoughts, cherishing both the freedom and the responsibility that come with caring for her physical and mental well-being. As she matured, Maria expanded her focus to the importance of personal power, communication, and the essence of life itself. She believes every person deserves the right to express themselves—whether through speech or creativity—while maintaining accountability for their actions and words.

Maria’s story is one of balancing self-awareness with compassion for others, always striving to act with dignity and listen with an open heart, embodying the fundamental human needs of both the individual and the collective.

Key Takeaways

* Maria Dolores shares the Human Constitution—7 principles for rights and responsibilities—drawing from global values and encouraging maturity, dignity, and collaboration in every aspect of life and work.

* Leaders, business owners, and individuals: caring for physical and mental health isn’t just personal, it’s foundational for thriving teams. Maria reminds us, maturity starts with self-awareness and responsibility.

* Our experiences, from grief to joy, shape how we connect and broaden perspectives. Maria believes embracing discomfort and lessons is key to growing as individuals and humanity as a whole.

* The Human Constitution isn’t top-down or political—it’s an invitation to reflect on our rights and responsibilities. Change begins within, and our ideas can change the world.

* Dignity means wearing your crown and honoring others’ crowns, too. Maria’s life and work remind us: we all have birthrights, but true maturity comes when we care for ourselves and each other with integrity.

00:00 “Maria Dolores: Five Questions Chat”

04:18 Human Constitution: Rights and Responsibilities

09:28 “Striving for Human Maturity”

11:25 “Human Evolution and Technology’s Role”

15:07 Lessons in Discomfort and Growth

20:31 “Rights, Responsibilities, and Life’s Journey”

24:38 “Living and Serving with Dignity”

27:52 “Maria’s Insights & Subscription Info”

29:27 Grateful Acknowledgment

Don’t forget: If you want to connect, ask questions, or get notified about upcoming guests like Maria subscribe to the newsletter here. You only need your first name and email—easy as (coffee) pie!

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Human Contract Foundation, Human Constitution, Universal Human Rights, birthrights, rights and responsibilities, dignity, maturity, global goals, civil courage, moral courage, collective rights, collective responsibilities, physical health, mental health, leadership, human resources, burnout, emotional health, personal power, communication, freedom of speech, freedom of creativity, empathy, self-worth, integrity, cultural diversity, global village, technology, collaboration, community change, slavery statistics

SPEAKER

Maria Dolores, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:33]:

Hi and welcome back to 5 Questions Over Coffee. I have in front of me my coffee mug. I know Maria, our guest today, has her coffee in front of her as well. So welcome to Maria Dolores. Maria is a global speaker, uh, she is a— the founder of the Human Contract Foundation, and we’re going to get into what the Human Contract Foundation is She’s the author of The Human Constitution, which I think is a really interesting and great document, and there will be links to that in the show notes so that you can access that and read it. And she was Ambassador for World Peace— that was, she was honored with that in 2023. And also only last year was given an honorary doctorate in humane letters, which I think is a brilliant achievement. So Maria, thank you for spending a few minutes with us and making some time in what I think must be a very, very busy life for you to come and spend a few minutes talking to us here at Five Questions Over Coffee.

Maria Dolores [00:01:33]:

Thank you, thank you, Stuart. I’m so happy to be here with you in the audience and to share about the Human Contract, the Human Constitution, and our rights and responsibilities. Thank you, thank you.

Stuart Webb [00:01:47]:

And we’re really looking forward to hearing it. So, so tell me a little bit about— and we’ll get into a little bit about the, the history behind it, but Who is it that you think— I mean, we’re all human beings, we all have rights, but who is it you’re trying to reach most at the moment with this contract, with the foundation that you’re working with?

Maria Dolores [00:02:08]:

Yeah, so I help leaders to remember people’s rights and responsibilities and to lessen hate, disrespect, and to increase Dignity and maturity. And I do this with the Human Constitution. The Human Constitution is 7 principles regarding our— to take a stand for our right, our birthrights, and that we all need to mature with these birthrights.

Stuart Webb [00:02:41]:

And, and tell us a little bit about those 7, if you like, to really get us into understanding how they fit.

Maria Dolores [00:02:48]:

Yes. Okay. So the 7 principles is based and derived from United Nations Declaration of the Universal Human Rights, but with rights, we should have responsibilities. Don’t you think, Stuart?

Stuart Webb [00:03:04]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Maria Dolores [00:03:06]:

So these 7 principles, the first 3 is personal: body, emotion, and thought, that you are born with a right to your body. You’re born with a right to the range of all your emotions and your thoughts. But we also have a responsibility to care for our body, our physical and mental health. So the first 3 principles is addressing our fundamental human needs as a, as a species and individually. And then the coming 3 is about power, communication, and life. That you have the right to your power, your personal power, and we also have a responsibility in how we act and interact with each other. And the fifth principle is about our communication, our freedom of speech and freedom of creativity, but also responsibility in what we say and what we create and to express and trying to express with dignity and trying to listen to each other. And so that’s the fifth principle.

Maria Dolores [00:04:18]:

And the sixth out of the seven is our life, that you have the right to your life and you have a responsibility to respect others’ way of life and other life forms, but never at the cost of any other. So, and I think we have a lot to do and a lot to mature here. Respecting— and so it also ties not only to United Nations Declaration of the Universal Human Rights, but it’s also the 17 Global Goals. And then the last principle, the, the 7th principle, is about our collective rights and responsibilities. In Swedish, we call this civil courage, which is moral courage, and to to increase civil participation and to increase how we need— and we, yeah, we really need to collaborate more as a species. So that’s the human constitution.

Stuart Webb [00:05:22]:

So can I just— I know the first 3, I can see how we get to sort of 6 and 7, how business owners, business leaders will see exactly they apply to their business. But the first 3, how do you help business owners, business leaders, people who are in charge of large organizations to understand the first 3? Because within a workspace, often we forget we have a responsibility. We forget ourselves. We work for a corporation. How do we manage that situation? How do you think we should?

Maria Dolores [00:05:59]:

Yeah. So Stuart, my, my background is with human resources and leadership. So I worked with 25 years and more with human resources and leadership. So I worked with everything from, you know, attracting strategies and recruiting and developing individual group organization and offboarding roles, offboarding groups and organization. And it’s really addressing our physical mental health. It’s when we get recruited and onboarded and to care for the individual and, and both the individual and the team and to develop our physical health understanding. So I was working in the Swedish steel industry and forest industry where we have people working in different schedules., you know, different times. I— for what, what do you call that? We call it shift.

Maria Dolores [00:07:01]:

They’re working.

Stuart Webb [00:07:02]:

Shift is a good— yeah.

Maria Dolores [00:07:06]:

Okay. So, and that’s also with the understanding of to have to really care about ourselves. And as leaders, you know, it’s really the fundamentals of how to have a well-functioning leadership, but also a good functioning team is to truly care about the physical mental health. Burnout is because we don’t acknowledge the early symptoms of burnout and not listen to ourselves. So it’s really, really fundamental. Both for the leader and for, for the co-worker. And we also— to have— now, the human constitution is not about— I’m not telling anyone anything. I’m just simply taking a stand for our rights and our responsibilities.

Maria Dolores [00:08:13]:

And this is not religious, it’s not party political, it’s not even an ideology, but simply to take a stand for our rights and responsibilities. How you want to do that is up to you. Some, like for instance, so some people are smoking, right? And we know that’s not really good for our health, but it’s to leave the choice for the individual and that we all have both rights and responsibility for ourselves. And one another. So it’s the choices that we make and to be more curious about our own emotions and our thoughts and to broaden perspectives and to be more curious and to mature with that.

Stuart Webb [00:09:08]:

And the maturity is such an important thing. And I know that we’ve just before we came on air, we discovered that today is your birthday. So very happy birthday, Maria, for, for today. Thank you. You talked a little bit about the fact that maturing is an important part of living.

Maria Dolores [00:09:28]:

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I’m sure you know also, Stewart, we have met the humans that are like 5 years old and who are very mature and very wise. And then we meet people who have lived most of their lives and who are very, you know, judgmental and, and locked in, in a narrow mindset and, yes, you know, immature, immature, really. So the human constitution is to encourage all humans, all 8 billion of us, to strive for maturity with more physical mental health, to lessen the drama, to increase and to broaden perspectives, to be more curious about ourselves and one another, and, and to mature in our relationships as well as we all need to mature as a species.

Stuart Webb [00:10:34]:

And that’s a really interesting point.

Maria Dolores [00:10:38]:

Because.

Stuart Webb [00:10:38]:

Um, we often, we often, we often almost, uh, I wouldn’t say throw away, but, but, but experience, uh, is not valued as much as it was, particularly in the Western world. Experience is often, uh, is often scorned in some respects, and yet it is an extremely valuable contribution. I mean, we, you, you look in the world of with nature. There are very few animals that keep grandparents around in order to help raise young people. Elephants is a great example, human beings and others. That’s because of the huge experience those, those elders have and can bring and contribute. And we often don’t see that as a, as a benefit.

Maria Dolores [00:11:25]:

Yeah. And what I also find, Stuart, is that we’re, we’re in a very privileged time in our human history right now. If we look back through our human history, the, the, um, here, there, the 300,000-year human history, and we have always had technology supporting and driving us to the next level and the next level. And, you know, 300,000 years ago, we lived in groups of 150 people, and then we grew in groups, became, becoming agricultural and having groups of 1,000, and then empires, and then various forms of democracies. And right now, we still have representation of people living, indigenous communities and nomads, in groups of 150. And we have small communities with agriculture living close to nature, various forms of empires, and various forms of democracies. So I think it’s really essential, and the change that we are in right now, obviously, like you, the audience, and you, Stuart, that we are scattered all across the planet and we have this beautiful technology supporting us and connecting us. So we’re standing very much in a nation-centric thinking and going to a global-local world.

Maria Dolores [00:13:14]:

And the shift going from this nation-centric thinking to the global-local world, and that shift is about embracing our history, embracing the potential of and the beauty of each cultural, the beauty of each region, the beauty of the Americanness, the beauty of the Britishness, the beauty of the Swedishness, and to embrace and to see that gemstone and that potential. For all of us to be proud, more proud and more mature of who we are, but also more curious about each other.

Stuart Webb [00:14:04]:

Yeah, I think that’s a beautiful thought, Maria, because when the internet was first dreamt up, the concept of a global village was very prominent in those first internet pioneers. And we have lost a lot of that thinking because Social media now tends to drive us into tribes, and you meet with only the people that you want to hear the same voices from. And hearing different voices from around the world and recognizing and understanding different voices, I think, is a key element of being a human being. And I would encourage any any teacher, any, uh, any parent to teach your children not to just, uh, follow the crowd, but to, to think about what they’re hearing and take from it the good and discard the bad. Because I think so often we fail to do that ourselves, don’t.

Maria Dolores [00:15:05]:

We?

Stuart Webb [00:15:07]:

Yeah.

Maria Dolores [00:15:07]:

And, and also with discarding the— discarding the what you say bad, for me, that’s also the lessons that we need to learn. Because usually whenever there is friction, whenever there is, you know, discomfort, there is also learning and a lesson in that. So the discomfort may be driven from an old belief, something we need to question. Or, you know, all the fear, anger, frustration, all the emotions that we carry, and more the dense emotion, there are lessons learned. And sometimes the lesson is to step away from, from a toxic situation, a toxic relationship, or a toxic workplace even, and, and to have and to increase our healthy boundaries, to have a healthy ego, to care for ourselves and our life in our relationships. So I see, I see this as very important lessons to learn.

Stuart Webb [00:16:28]:

I think that’s lovely, and I think it also reminds us of those later principles that we also have responsibilities for the planet, don’t we? We have responsibilities for those around us. It’s not just ourselves, but we have to look after, the people around us. Because otherwise, how can we continue to look after ourselves if the planet is— if we don’t look after the planet, if we don’t look around, look around our neighbors and look after them, we have no way of being able to actually ensure that we are looking after ourselves, do we?

Maria Dolores [00:16:57]:

Yeah, yeah. And that’s why I think the human constitution is, as you understand, it’s not anything like top-down. It’s not a decree. It’s not a policy. It’s simply an offering, and it’s to be curious about ourselves, who we are. What is my right and what is my responsibility? Yes. How can I mature in this situation? How can I care better for myself? How can I show better care in my relationships and in, in this preconditions that I have? And how can we better collaborate? You know, to, to bring up a, a heavy topic, um, we have 45 million slaves in the world today. 45 million slaves.

Maria Dolores [00:17:55]:

We have never had as many slaves in the world through our human history. Yet we have never had as few in percentage. So I think the change needs to be both from within and in the community, because if we have 45 million slaves, then we have about half a billion people working and trading around this. So the change needs to come from within and within the community and the pressure and the support from all of us saying, we’re not accepting this anymore. This is not okay. And that’s the 6th and the 7th principle reminding us about who we are and who we.

Stuart Webb [00:18:49]:

Can be. I was going to ask you as my 3rd question, I know we’ve been talking for a while over 1 or 2, but my 3rd question is, is there one, and I I would just at this point invite any of the people who are either watching or listening on the recording, if you have questions that you want to pose to Maria, we will have available show notes that will enable you to sort of follow and understand where Maria posts a lot of her talks and where she works. So please reach out, ask Maria questions. Is there one thing, one tip that you would like to sort of get? If somebody wants to remember nothing else from what you’ve said, what is the one thing you want want them to take.

Maria Dolores [00:19:34]:

Away today? I, I want to say that your ideas matter, and your ideas can change the world. Your change within can change the world. And to, to listen to what would be my rights here and what would be.

Stuart Webb [00:20:00]:

My responsibilities. Maria, my fourth question is around how you got to this place where you are at the moment. This is not something that you just sort of sit one evening and sort of realize that you need to document these 7 principles. This is the work of somebody who’s thought deeply and come to realize it. So how did you come to understand these 7 principles? What was the journey? And please don’t feel you need to go into every detail, but give us a flavor of exactly how you came.

Maria Dolores [00:20:31]:

To where you are today. Yeah, so, um, uh, it’s true, I have been working on this for decades. Um, 10 years ago I published my book, uh, State of Grace: Human Rights and Human Obligations. So that was when I first published and started to talk about our rights and responsibilities Obviously, you know, no thoughts come just out of nothing. Everything is building on everything, I would say. And so in conversations with my friends, but also being a woman born and raised in Sweden, studying psychology, my major in sociology, philosophy, working with human resources and leadership and to see the need and also the human history, which I described earlier, and to see the breaking point of where we are today and the potential of the beautiful technology we have, but also the lack of the fundamentals that could support humans and humanity forward, which is really the, the core of our rights and responsibilities. It’s about life here and now. And I, you know, personally experienced grief, and my mother died in 2015, experienced extreme fear, and my ex-husband was stalking me in, in our divorce, and but also the freedom and insights of life and how life is evolving, and to see other aspects of life.

Maria Dolores [00:22:31]:

And I’ve done over the years, I’ve done over 160 days of meditation. So it’s both reading and growing up in a society where we have had 200 years of peace, but also seeing myself and my own lessons and humanity as a whole and my love really for people. Seeing people and in all different situations.

Stuart Webb [00:23:15]:

Wow. Gosh, wow. That’s a, that’s a story, and I’m sure there’s another book in there as well somehow. Maria, I realize I’ve taken up a lot of your time. As I said, I welcome comments, questions from people watching and listening at the moment because I think you have a wealth of experience to offer to us. If you’ve got questions about, you know, how do you apply some of this in your business, if you’ve got questions about how you apply some of this in your own personal life, there are some resources that we’ll point you to. And Maria’s just an open person. I know that she will love to engage and talk with you.

Stuart Webb [00:23:57]:

But there must be one question at the moment, Maria, you’re thinking, he hasn’t asked me the one truly killer question, and he’s gonna do it any minute now. Well, I admit I never ever know what the killer question is, so therefore I ask you, what is the question that I should have asked you? And please, once you’ve explained the question, you need to answer it for us because you’re the expert. So what is that killer question, the final question that I really should have.

Maria Dolores [00:24:24]:

Asked and I haven’t yet? Thank you. My core value is dignity, and so the question would be, so what.

Stuart Webb [00:24:35]:

Is dignity? What a great question.

Maria Dolores [00:24:38]:

And dignity for me is when you have the crown on your head. You are the king, you are the queen in your life, and you have the crown on and you treat yourself with dignity and grace, but also to see others as their king and their queen in their life. And I, I worked with dignity in— while helping my friend in her funeral business and casketing 3,000 people, seeing all religions— Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, and secular sermons. So all the major religions. And also attending 1,500 funerals and with dignity to see and to acknowledge that we have both rights and responsibility for all our emotions and to be who we are in that moment in grief, but also the potential of broadening perspectives. For ourselves and one another.

Stuart Webb [00:25:58]:

So dignity. So how do you see, because I often spend a lot of my time thinking about people who have very little self-worth. They don’t have enough of an understanding of how they fit into the world. How do I describe this? Self-worth for me is being able to walk down the street and not necessarily feeling as though you own the street, because I don’t think that’s the right thing, but you don’t care who owns the street. You walk down the street not worrying about anything else around you. Do you see that as a form of dignity? Do you see dignity as related to.

Maria Dolores [00:26:36]:

That in some way? Yeah, and that’s for me dignity and integrity is like a brother and sister. But yeah, dignity, you know, if you feel like You own the street. You know, it’s— I think that’s a good way to express it. But you don’t own the street at the expense of others. No. It’s to hold that, to imagine like you’re in a protective bubble or, you know, an integrity bubble and with mutual respect. And you have steward, you have that crown on your head, and you are the pride, but not the oppression.

Stuart Webb [00:27:29]:

So if I can summarize it, you walk down the street, but you don’t care who owns the street. As far as you’re concerned, you have the right, you have the responsibility to act in a way which is with with compassion, but you walk down the street because that’s where you need to be, and you just know that’s where.

Maria Dolores [00:27:49]:

You need to be.

Stuart Webb [00:27:52]:

Yeah. And I think with that, Maria, I have to thank you for such a fascinating, uh, discussion. Um, uh, for those of you watching and listening, uh, Maria is a, is a, is a fantastic person to follow on LinkedIn and on her various social medias. There will be links to where you can find out more about Maria in show notes. And I would ask you at this stage, if you want to to be able to get a simple email from me, uh, which just allows you to know who’s going to come up on these, uh, and, and spend some time watching, listening, catching up with some of these brilliant interviews. And I love some of the people that come on this and talk to us about these fascinating subjects. If you go to www.systemize— that’s S-Y-S-T-E-M-I-S-E—.me/subscribe there’s a simple form. It asks for just two things: your first name, your email address.

Stuart Webb [00:28:45]:

That’s all it needs, and you will get an email from me which says who’s coming up on these podcasts, how you can get involved, how you can ask questions, or where you can get and speak to some of these fabulous, fabulous people that are on. Maria, thank you so much, uh, for, for coming on. I’d love it if, uh, if you— if you’re listening, uh, follow, follow this podcast, but follow Maria. She is fascinating and brilliant speaker with a wonderful idea. And you’ll get notes on where you can get the, uh, more information about what Maria says, does, in the show notes. Maria, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. We really do appreciate you spending a few minutes out of your, I know, very busy day.

Maria Dolores [00:29:27]:

Thank you. Thank you, Stuart. Thank you very much.

Who is Ally?

Ally Machete has built her career working closely with a dynamic range of authors, but she has found her true passion in helping confident business owners become first-time authors. She specializes in guiding experienced entrepreneurs who know their industries inside out but feel unsure when it comes to writing a book. Understanding that her clients have no time, energy, or money to waste, Ally works deliberately and strategically to ensure their book aligns with their greater business goals. She is the expert these leaders turn to when the stakes are high, and there’s no room for mistakes—helping them transform their hard-won expertise into powerful, purposeful books.

Key Takeaways

* Writing a book isn’t just for the famous—it’s a powerful tool to build credibility and open doors for any expert. As Ally Machete shares, the real impact comes from writing the right book, with the right strategy behind it.

* Don’t write a book for “everyone.” As Ally Machete explains, clarity about your target audience and their needs makes your book not only marketable but transformative for your business or career.

* A well-crafted book is more than “decoration for your Zoom background,” says Ally Machete. It’s a tool—something to leverage intentionally, not just a vanity project.

* Not every business needs a book. Ally Machete recommends crafting your strategy first—sometimes timing or focus on other projects delivers more growth than rushing into publishing.

* Feeling the “magic” of book writing doesn’t mean ditching strategy. Ally Machete urges authors: don’t just write what you want, write what solves a real need for your ideal reader. That’s how culture shifts—one book at a time.

Don’t forget: If you want to connect, ask questions, or get notified about upcoming guests like Ally, subscribe to the newsletter here. You only need your first name and email—easy as (coffee) pie!

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

writing a book, lead generation, business owners, book marketing, strategic writing, target audience, book publishing, book as a tool, writing process, marketable book, author credibility, authority, business growth, writing strategy, book promotion, niche audience, sales conversion, email list building, free resources, blog articles, podcast interviews, digital printing, ebooks, networking, credibility signal, partnership promotion, course creation, return on investment (ROI), book launch, marketing strategy

SPEAKER

Ally Machate, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:00]:

Live, please go live. Yeah. Hi, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I am here today with Ali Machati, the writer’s ally. I’ve got those two right, haven’t I, Ali, Please tell me. Okay, thank you. So I was going to get something wrong.

Stuart Webb [00:00:47]:

I’ve managed to get through without actually making a huge mistake yet. So welcome, Ali. Thank you so much for making a few minutes today. Ali is, well, she’s somebody who helps people write books. So I can tell you somebody who has tried to do that and successfully succeeded, but by golly, it was hard. You need an ally in your corner. So I’m really pleased Ali has made some time today to come talk to us a little bit about this. You know, writing a book is probably the greatest lead generator you can do because it really sets you apart from the competition.

Stuart Webb [00:01:18]:

Ali is going to tell us all about that. So, Ali, thank you so much for being the writer’s ally. And welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee.

Ally Machete [00:01:26]:

Thank you so much for having me, Stuart. I’m really excited to be here.

Stuart Webb [00:01:30]:

Well, I hope. I hope we’re going to have a really interesting conversation. So let’s start by talking a little bit about, well, the sort of people you try to help as the. As the writer’s ally.

Ally Machete [00:01:43]:

Yeah. So we work with lots of kinds of authors, but our real sweet spot, our ideal client, are generally business owners, people who have been in business for a little while and are really confident in their expertise. But now they’re thinking about writing a book and they’re not confident about that. You know, they don’t have time, money, energy to waste. All of that has to go very deliberately into their plans and their strategies in business. But they want to have that book. They know enough to know that there’s things they don’t know, and they know that they really need to get it right. That book has really important goals attached to it.

Ally Machete [00:02:24]:

It’s a tool that’s going to be really valuable to them and is a part of their growth strategy. And so they need it to be done at the highest level. And that’s where we come in.

Stuart Webb [00:02:33]:

That’s brilliant. So tell me. I mean, you’ve obviously, you’ve obviously helped a lot of people do this.

Ally Machete [00:02:38]:

What.

Stuart Webb [00:02:38]:

What are the sort of things they tried to do? I mean, you know, everybody has sat with that sort of completely blank piece of paper or blank screen or whatever nowadays and thought, where do I start? What are the things that you’ve seen them try which have failed to get them anywhere.

Ally Machete [00:02:54]:

Well, one of the things that I think a lot of people who are new to writing a book get stuck on is there’s this sort of kind of like romantic, kind of magical, I think thinking around what a, what a writing process looks like. You know, you’re going to get struck by the muse and you’re going to sit down and it’s all going to flow out of you in a number of hours and you’re going to end up with this masterpiece that, you know, just needs a spell check and then you’re done. Right. And they don’t understand how much harder it actually is. You know, even if you are fortunate enough to be able to create a rough draft very easily, and some people certainly can, some people do have that experience, but that is rarely the finished product. Right. There is so much that goes into crafting a book strategically. Not just writing a good book, but writing a marketable book.

Ally Machete [00:03:44]:

Writing a book that’s going to get you certain results in your business is a lot more than just writing something that’s, you know, basically well written and, or even interesting to read. So I think that’s, that’s the biggest piece where people tend to get tripped up is they think, well, I wrote it, it’s good, right. It’s objectively good. And they miss that strategic tie in piece and they end up with a book that on the surface is really nice and looks professional and is well done, but doesn’t move the dial in their business.

Stuart Webb [00:04:14]:

So we may be straying into the sort of the third question here, which is about what, what free advice, what valuable advice you can give, but sort of talk a little bit about that. Sort of, what do you mean by a marketable book? Sort of explain the whole, you know, what that does to a little bit about what that does to somebody’s business, somebody’s career, but also a little bit about what needs to go into a marketable book for it to be something that people actually want to pick up and look at.

Ally Machete [00:04:41]:

Yeah. So one element of that is when you write a book that is the wrong book. Right. So first let’s just assume you’ve written a book, it’s a good book, it’s objectively well written. Right. It’s been, you’ve put energy into it, you’ve made an effort, it looks nice, you paid for a nice cover, maybe even, and it all looks good. What might make that book not marketable are a few different things. First of all, if you were never clear on exactly who your Target audience for that book is a lot of people write a book thinking that anybody can benefit from this, this book will help everyone.

Ally Machete [00:05:15]:

And even though that may be true, you can never market to everyone. Right. Like, I like to say that if you’re trying to talk to everybody, then you’re going to be connecting with nobody. So this idea that it’s just, I’m putting this out there, it’s going to help all of these people without really getting clear about who exactly the book is for, that can make a book not marketable. If you don’t know who to put the book in front of to sell copies, it’s almost impossible to create a marketing strategy. Right. A lot of marketing strategy is about who are the right readers for this and how do we get in front of those people. So if your audience isn’t clear, if your promise isn’t clear, if it isn’t crystal clear why your target reader needs your book.

Ally Machete [00:05:56]:

Right. Again, a lot of people start a book from a kind of internal place. If they have something they want to say or they have something that they feel like they can share, that’s a value. But ultimately, people don’t buy books because you think they need the book. Right. They buy the book because there’s something they want or there’s something they’re looking for that they feel like your book is the answer to. So that comes back to your unique promise. If your promise isn’t crystal clear, it might be a good book, but it’s going to be very difficult to position and it’s going to be very difficult to have that conversion situation.

Ally Machete [00:06:28]:

Just like any other product or any other sale, when you’re just trying to sell books, there’s conversions. People will come and check it out. If there’s nothing there to actually hook them in and make them see, yeah, this is the book that’s going to solve my problem or teach me the thing I need to learn. They don’t convert.

Stuart Webb [00:06:43]:

Do you know, Ali, you make it sound as if you’re trying to sort of put together a marketing strategy for some sort of product, which you would hope a business owner has learned how to do. But anyway, let’s, let’s move on a little bit. Tell me a little bit more about the. The sort of effects that you think a book can have to somebody’s business, somebody’s career, if you like. I mean, we can all think of people like Tony Robbins who have written interesting books and then they end up on the world stage. I’m not necessarily suggesting that we’re all going to do that tomorrow?

Ally Machete [00:07:11]:

No. And you don’t have to. That’s the really beautiful thing about books. And especially these days. You know, not only do we have the Internet, which gives us tons of opportunities to directly connect with our target audience and to market a book with, you know, very little cost compared to, let’s say, print media, for example, but also we have digital and print tech, digital printing technology, and ebooks. So the very act of creating a book, making it available for sale, getting it out there, is also more accessible to people now than it pretty much ever has been in history, really. So those are all really wonderful things. But excuse me, when you put that book out there.

Ally Machete [00:07:52]:

So let’s say, for example, that somebody is writing a book to bring in more clients. That’s like a pretty classic example. They’re writing a book to bring in more clients if they write a memoir. And I’ve seen this a lot with coaches, in particular coaches and consultants, they think, well, people who want to work with me want to know more about me. So instead of writing a book that shows how they think about that particular problem, how they’ve worked with people in that particular niche, how their process or their way of, you know, approaching a situation is a good method or a different way of thinking about certain things, and instead they write a memoir, they write a book that’s just all about them and their life’s journey. Right? Sure, there will be a subset of people who are interested in that book, but most people don’t come to the book because they want to learn all about you. Again, people buy a book because what’s in it for me? Right? What are they going to get from it? So when you have a book that’s dialed in to the right people and is strategically aligned to achieve goals in your business, and it can accomplish large numbers of things. Everything from the very simple giving books away to build your mailing list.

Ally Machete [00:09:05]:

We’ve had clients too, in particular that were enormously successful simply finding partners who are willing to promote the free ebook to their lists because they thought that it was something of value. It’s a win, win situation, right? I want you to promote my book. You get to give something free to your audience. Everybody looks good. Now all of a sudden you have thousands of people opting in to join your list to get a copy of that free book. That’s a real basic, simple way of leveraging a book to grow your business. But also things like we’ve had clients tell us that sitting down in a meeting with people and Taking a few copies of the book out of their bag and handing it to the high level people that they’re meeting with changes the conversation instantly. Right.

Ally Machete [00:09:50]:

Giving a book to somebody or even just knowing that someone is the author of a book is an instant credibility signal. They don’t even have to read the book. The very fact that you’ve written one, again, assuming it’s the right one and it’s done well, you hand it to them, they look at it, they can see this person literally wrote the book on this subject. And there’s a psychological effect. Again, there’s a reason why the word author is the root word of authority. Right. And that’s how we think about people with books. So having that book can get you to open more doors, it can get you on more stages, it can get you more clients, it can get you higher level clients, it can help you to close deals.

Ally Machete [00:10:32]:

It shortens the like, no trust factor and gets those that cycle, that sales cycle to shorten and speed up. It can do a number of really important things for your business. And I agree, I think it is one of the most powerful lead generating tools even still.

Stuart Webb [00:10:47]:

Yeah. And amazingly, I learned a little bit about this. But the words sort of, you know, the best business card you will ever have are really applicable here, aren’t they? Because somebody who has a book, you don’t need to leave them a business card. You leave them the book, they’ll find you. Even if you’ve got very little else in that book in terms of contact details, they will find you because a book says something about you. Ali, I’m going to sort of pose the, you know, is there one piece of. And I think you’ve already given some advice, but I’m sure there are other things and I know we’ve got some things that we’re going to be sort of pointing people towards, which is in our vault, which is in www.systemize.me. free stuff.

Stuart Webb [00:11:32]:

Tell us a little bit about some of the free, valuable services you provide to people.

Ally Machete [00:11:38]:

Well, we have a blog, of course. We publish new articles every month. So our blog is available for free at our website. Atthewriters ally.com you can find our newly launched library. And in the library we have links to the blog with all of those articles. We have a playlist of podcasts that I’ve been on. I’ve been on more than 50 podcasts. And so they can listen to those recordings or watch those videos and download a number of free resources that we have available.

Ally Machete [00:12:08]:

Checklists, a few mini Guides. I have a ton of stuff available for people. I’ve been in this business more than 20 years and I’ve accumulated some stuff. So I’ve really put it all together. We just launched this website. I’m very excited about having this, you know, the ability to put all of this stuff in one place to give to people.

Stuart Webb [00:12:26]:

And, and I, and I’ve had a look at some of the checklists and I must admit I, I was, I was really, really impressed. So look, if you haven’t captured all of the, the details of that, we will have links to, well, where you can find all this stuff and more stuff from alysystemize me forward slash free hyphen stuff. Yeah.

Ally Machete [00:12:45]:

Before you jump to the last question, I just wanted to add one thing.

Stuart Webb [00:12:48]:

We’re not even close to that yet. Don’t get excited.

Ally Machete [00:12:52]:

I also have a free gift that I prepared especially for your audience. And they can.

Stuart Webb [00:12:56]:

Oh, thank you.

Ally Machete [00:12:57]:

Yes, they can get that. If you go to offers.the writers ally.com rocketscience it is an evergreen video of my webinar called Don’t Write the Wrong Book. And it is about just that. What does it mean to write the right book? How do you avoid writing the wrong book? And a simplified step process for thinking through your book idea. Whether you have one idea you’re trying to choose, or if you’ve already started writing and you want to temperature check what you’re working on, it’ll help make sure that everything is strategically aligned in the way that we’re talking about today.

Stuart Webb [00:13:27]:

I will make sure that link is in the, in the vault, our vault, which is another valuable resource. But I will make sure that’s pointing straight to you. We, we will, we will get that to people. We are not yet at the end though, Ali, because we have more to go. Awesome. What, what you’ve just said. You’ve been in this business for 20 years, so that’s, that’s a huge amount of experience. But let’s, let’s talk about how you got here.

Stuart Webb [00:13:52]:

What is it? Was it, was it a realization that you just had to write? Was it the realization you didn’t write very well? What was it that brought you to understanding how to give such valuable advice? Was it a book? Was it a program? Was it a life experience that brought you this level of understanding of how to write a book?

Ally Machete [00:14:11]:

Well, Stuart, I am a lifelong dedicated book nerd. Really. I’ve always loved books. I’ve always loved writing and reading. It’s family legend that I learned to read at the age of three because I was frustrated that my parents just wouldn’t sit and read to me all day long, you know, God, they had had to go to work and like do things. But I started reading very early and making books out of construction paper and crayons and I would give them to like my neighbors and my friends. And I would tell people I was, I was a book publisher. And even as early as first grade, you know, you get into school and everyone’s always asking, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to be? And I would tell people I wanted to be a writer, a lawyer and an editor at Simon and Schuster.

Stuart Webb [00:14:56]:

Oh, wow.

Ally Machete [00:14:58]:

Yes. And you know, I have no idea where that came from. I’ll be totally honest, you know, like, why Simon and Schuster? Where did I pick that up? Goodness only knows. But it was something that I said and I stuck with it. I stuck with that love all the way through my academic career. I did, you know, yearbook and school paper and lit mag and all that kind of stuff. But was really in college where I started getting more serious about it. I started freelancing for pay as a writer as the Internet started becoming a thing and really opening up opportunities.

Ally Machete [00:15:26]:

And then of course, I did an internship at a small regional publisher while I was still in school in upstate New York. And after that, the big, big turning point was that I got that dream job and I got hired at Simon and Schuster.

Stuart Webb [00:15:39]:

Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow. But the greater challenge was then to go on and do it and show other people how to do that.

Ally Machete [00:15:46]:

That’s absolutely true. Yeah. So I spent some time there. I learned a ton, as you can imagine. Big five publishing. You know, that’s, that’s the Olympics of publishing. Like you really learn everything at the highest level. And I was also fortunate to be in particular in a department that was very nurturing and very supportive of its young people.

Ally Machete [00:16:05]:

So I got to really learn. Hands on. I acquired my first book for the company before I had been there a year, which is pretty much unheard of. And so I was able to just dive in and learn a lot about how it all worked. And then, you know, fast forward a few years, dot com bust happened, 9, 11 happened. A lot of things were changing in New York. I decided to step away for a little while. I thought I would wrap up.

Ally Machete [00:16:29]:

I was doing a part time master’s degree that had taken me a few years. I was real close. I thought, you know what, I’ll knock it out. I’ll take a Year, I’ll go full time, I’ll finish all my classes, I’ll do some freelancing, I and I’ll come back and maybe, you know, the economy will have calmed down and the market, the job market will have opened up again. And I loved working directly with the authors and running my own business so much that I never looked back.

Stuart Webb [00:16:50]:

Yeah, well done. Well done. Look, Alec, I’m going to have to say you’ve been asking some and or answering some brilliant questions. But there must be one question that you cannot get away from thinking. When is he going to ask me that killer question, the really important one? Well, I don’t know what that question is, so I’m just gonna have to ask you what is the killer question that I should have asked you by now? And obviously, well, you have the question, so you might as well answer it as well.

Ally Machete [00:17:19]:

Well, I think the killer question is one that most people maybe don’t ask because they assume, which is, should everybody have a book?

Stuart Webb [00:17:26]:

You know the question.

Ally Machete [00:17:29]:

Yeah, and the answer might surprise you because there are a lot of people out there who suggest that if you have a business, if you are an expert, you have to have a book, it is just a must have. And I do not agree with that at all. I think there are situations in which a book may not be right for your business. It really depends on what your strategy is and where you’re trying to go. Because as we’ve been talking about, the real power in a book is as a tool to be leveraged, right? It’s not just decoration for your zoom background, it’s something you’re going to use in your business.

Stuart Webb [00:18:04]:

Business.

Ally Machete [00:18:05]:

Not every business benefits from a book and not every business benefits from a book at any time. So there’s also a timing issue involved writing a book. As you know, Stuart, you’ve been involved. It’s a huge commitment of time, energy and money. And anything that you are saying yes to means you’re also saying no to other things, right? So, you know, one of the biggest misconceptions I think people have is this idea that, well, if every business owner has to have a book, I’m new to business, I’m still growing my business. If I write this book, that will help me establish myself. But you have to have a business to grow before a book can help you grow a business, right? It’s not the thing that gives you a business, it’s the thing that helps you level up what you already have. So if you’re not already at least a little, well, established, it might be too early for a book to really give you the kind of benefits that it would if you waited a little bit longer or if you’re in a situation where you have a choice to do I launch a new course? Do I do this big marketing push? Do I change this part of my business, or do I write a book? You want to think strategically.

Ally Machete [00:19:09]:

What is the thing that’s going to give you the most ROI where you need it first? And a book is not always the answer.

Stuart Webb [00:19:17]:

Do you know, it’s almost as if you are trying to say to people, you have to have a strategy why you are writing a book, know who your audience is and write the book for that audience. And if you’re still in the process of working out who what your business is about and who your audience is, maybe a book is not going to help you achieve that goal.

Ally Machete [00:19:35]:

Exactly right. Exactly right.

Stuart Webb [00:19:38]:

Hey, I think that is a fantastic and truly brilliant way to wrap this up. Because if there’s one thing that I think you’ve proven to us, Ali, is that you are an ally. You are somebody who is trying to think of the best for the authority, trying to think of the best way of helping that author achieve their goals, rather than just trying to pitch everybody on doing the same thing just for the sake of it. That’s a truly allied way of thinking. So thank you so much for bringing that perspective. And if you don’t mind me just taking two minutes from me, if you, you get such value from some of these, from some of these interviews from brilliant people like Ali, who’s bringing this wealth of knowledge. I would like to be able to send you an email once a week just to say who’s coming up on the podcast. And the only way you can get that email is if you join the blog, the email list, and that is to go to www.systemize.me.

Stuart Webb [00:20:38]:

subscribe. That’s a simple form. It takes you to. It needs two things. Your first name, your email address. I don’t want anything else. I just want to be able to send you an email. I just want to be able to address you as you and, and tell you about the brilliant stuff that’s coming up.

Stuart Webb [00:20:50]:

Ali, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us and being so, so, so honest with your advice and so, so helping us to think through just how we need to use books to be so intentional. Thank you for that time.

Ally Machete [00:21:06]:

It’s my pleasure, really. Thank you for having me. And you know, I like to say I’m a reader too. I want there to be better books out there for me too, you know. So I really do care is it.

Stuart Webb [00:21:17]:

Is a heart led business for somebody who’s been doing that since three years old. I guess you do need another one of those books to just have a look at least. At least one more time, don’t you? Thank you so much Ali. I really appreciate it.

Ally Machete [00:21:32]:

Thanks again.

Who is Julia?

Julia Felton is a business consultant who has built a reputation for identifying the real issues behind her clients’ challenges. While companies often approach her with concerns about team dysfunction, lack of trust, and poor collaboration, Julia quickly uncovers that these surface symptoms stem from deeper underlying causes. With her insightful approach, she helps organizations move beyond treating just the symptoms—enabling teams to break free from silos, improve communication, and achieve the results they desire. Julia’s clients rely on her expertise to foster genuine trust and collaboration within their teams.

Key Takeaways

* Is your team chasing results but feeling disconnected? Julia Felton says it’s all about energy alignment, not just process. Slow down, reset, and watch collaboration grow.

* Most trust issues in teams don’t come from lack of tools, but from not investing enough in relationships. Build social capital, even if it feels “frivolous”—it’s critical for flow.

* True leadership isn’t about controlling everything. Julia Felton reminds us: empower your team, step back, and let the natural talents shine for real productivity.

* Vision isn’t a one-time message. Keep communicating your purpose so everyone knows where you’re heading. As Julia Felton notes, clarity builds trust and connection.

* Take inspiration from nature: humans, like herds, thrive when leadership is shared. Health, harmony, unity—let these guide your team to higher trust and adaptability.

Don’t forget: If you want to connect, ask questions, or get notified about upcoming guests like Julia, subscribe to the newsletter here. You only need your first name and email—easy as (coffee) pie!

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

trust issues, team building, rewilding leadership, misaligned energy, team dynamics, collaboration, silos in business, business productivity, meeting fatigue, leadership styles, performance paradox, shared leadership, empowerment, micromanagement, business culture, teamship, employee engagement, organizational trust, social capital, remote work challenges, communication in teams, business vision, talent management, role alignment, leveraging strengths, sustainable leadership, natural leadership, flow in teams, founder-led business, relationship building

SPEAKER

Julia Felton, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:01]:

Hopefully. Hi, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I’m delighted. Today I’ve been joined by Julia Felton. Julia is an expert in, well, helping to fix trust issues within teams using rewilding leadership. She’s really going to help us to understand exactly how we can rebuild those trust issues which so often dog startups, even rapidly scaling a growing company. So, Julia, welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science.

Stuart Webb [00:01:01]:

Five questions over coffee. I hope you’ve got your coffee in front of you. I’ve actually got a fruit tea at the moment, but that’s because it’s after Christmas. I try to be careful with my body.

Julia Felton [00:01:12]:

Well, me too, Stuart. I’m, I’ve got ginger and lemon here.

Stuart Webb [00:01:15]:

So I’ve been off your only way to live. Let’s start by understanding, you know, the sort of person you’re trying to help. You obviously, you’re obviously trying to help somebody that’s got a problem. But how do, how would you recognize them? What would they, what would they be saying? What would they be doing in order to sort of, you know, for you to be able to say, well, that’s exactly the sort of person I’m trying to help.

Julia Felton [00:01:42]:

Yeah, that’s such a great question. Because I think what typically happens is what people come to me with and what actually the problem is, are very different. And I think often what we find in business, isn’t it, we, we, we, we of treating the symptom rather than the cause. So sort of people come to me and they go, oh, my team’s not functioning properly, Julia. You know, and people don’t trust each other. There’s a lot of bickering going on, we’re not getting the results we want. You know, there’s people are working in silos, nobody collaborates together. Those are the sorts of things that my clients are saying.

Julia Felton [00:02:19]:

And my clients range from, you know, smaller SMEs up to larger corporates, you know, and this, these kinds of problems exist throughout many types of organizations. So anywhere where you’ve got people involved, really. Because at the end of the day, trust drives everything in business. Right.

Stuart Webb [00:02:41]:

So what would some of those, I mean, you just talked about sort of smaller SMEs, large corporates. I mean, they’ve tried everything before, haven’t they? They’ve done the courses, they’ve sent people off on the training courses, they’ve, they’ve done that, they’ve done the online stuff, they’ve done everything they can and it’s still not fixing it. So what are the sort of things that they are trying that you break through and you find that even having done this stuff, they’ve still got these issues.

Julia Felton [00:03:08]:

Sure. So I think if we distill it back down and we go to, well, what’s really the cause of what’s going on in the business? Rather the biggest challenge, if I was to sum it up like that, is it’s, it’s not this lack of skill or ambition or desire, but it’s actually all to do with misaligned energy. So we’ve got brilliant purpose driven leaders out there. They built often fast growing businesses, but somewhere along the way this momentum turns into mayhem, right? And the team’s busy, but it’s not productive. People, you know, having loads and loads of meetings. We know this meeting fatigue, right? The progress stalls, everyone’s working harder, but people aren’t working collectively together, they’re not pulling in the same direction. So I call that the performance paradox. Because what we’re seeing is companies chasing these results so hard, but they’ve become really disconnected from the very people and the energy that creates them.

Julia Felton [00:04:08]:

So what happens is these businesses start running on logic and process rather when what we really need is this connection and trust and flow, Flow. And so I think what I really see leaders craving is a much more natural, sustainable way of leading where we get everyone pulling in the same direction and we stop forcing the results and we start getting the results flowing naturally because everyone’s working in their right energy. And as you know, Stuart, you know, I’m very passionate about nature. I reference everything back to the natural world. And, and you know, when we look at the natural world, the natural world understands the ebb and flow of energy and how it goes inside cycles. And that’s what we’re not really seeing in business right now is leaders really understanding that. And it’s interesting, we’re recording this right after Christmas, right, where people have actually had an opportunity to kind of rest and re reset themselves for this year. But we tend to wait till Christmas, right.

Julia Felton [00:05:10]:

And we take a week or two weeks off, try and rest and reset and then we don’t. Then we try and go for another whole year and, and that’s not feasible for people.

Stuart Webb [00:05:21]:

So what are some of the things that you then introduce into the business in order for them to, to understand that it’s that, you know, to develop that ebb and flow. What is it you do to help them essentially reset on a more regular basis?

Julia Felton [00:05:36]:

Yeah, well, obviously as we, as we just talked about there, you know, reset the rhythm and flow and recovery. So for me, that’s actually about leaders taking time out to rest and relax and, and it’s that psychology of slowing down to speed up that, you know, instinctively we know that, but everything’s saying to us, oh, you know, if I, if I take the afternoon off, I’m not going to get everything done. But I don’t know about you, Stuart, but I know when I step away from my desk, if I’m really struggling with something, all of a sudden when I’m away from, from my work and what I’m doing, I get all these insights. So it’s about understanding that in order to get into flow, we actually have to go through a period of resetting ourselves and resting and stepping away from the problem in order to get back. You know, it’s a good old adage, isn’t it? You know, we get our best ideas in the shower, wherever it is, out on walks and stuff like that. So I think it’s about really purposefully crafting time into our weekly schedules to do that. Because I think most people, they go into the office, you know, foot to the metal, go, go, go all day and we get to the end of the day and then they’re like, I’m not even sure what I’ve accomplished because we’ve just been being that busy fool that, you know, you and I know, I’ve talked about, you know, we’re spending all this time doing things, but we’re not doing the right things that we need to do.

Stuart Webb [00:07:05]:

Yeah.

Julia Felton [00:07:05]:

So, you know, if we look at some of the mistakes that people are making around, this is the first thing we often see companies doing, is we put all these tools right. We’ve got problems. Like you said, you know, teams are working in silos, there’s no collaboration. So we throw tools at the problem. You know, we maybe buy, you know, a collaboration platform like Trello or Asana or something like that to try and make everyone work more effectively together. And that rarely solves the problem. Right. Or we send people on team building away days or training courses, and all of these can have some marginal gain for the business, but they don’t really get to the shifting the underlying energy or trust dynamics that are actually blocking performance.

Julia Felton [00:07:52]:

And for me, the way that we change those trust dynamics is actually by really slowing down and investing time in building relationships. It’s this importance of social capital within business. Right. And sometimes it seems a bit frivolous. Right. You know, oh, we, we’re stopping and we’re talking to somebody in the corridor. But I don’t know about you, but you know, in the days when we were all in the office and I was in the corporate world, I got all my information from those informal chats. That’s where you knew what was going on.

Julia Felton [00:08:23]:

Of course the trouble that we’ve got right now is with so many people working remotely, all of that informal communication you might want to say isn’t getting shared and you don’t know what’s going on in another team, which you would have found out because you walk with somebody and you went and grabbed lunch with them when we used to go out to the sandwich bars for lunch or whatever or you were making your coffee. So I think there’s a big problem there that we’re not spending enough time investing in building that social capital.

Stuart Webb [00:08:54]:

Yeah.

Julia Felton [00:08:55]:

And go. I’m sorry.

Stuart Webb [00:08:57]:

No indeed. I’m just agreeing with you. Absolutely agreeing with you.

Julia Felton [00:09:00]:

Yeah. And I think one of the other mistakes I’m seeing companies make is that they, when things aren’t going well, there’s a tendency, particularly if it’s a smaller founder led business for the founders want to take everything back, to control everything. Right. You know, if I control everything, it’s going to work better, better. More meetings, more KPIs, more oversight. But actually all that’s doing is draining the founders energy. But more importantly it’s signaling to your team members that you don’t trust them. We’re not allowing them to get on.

Julia Felton [00:09:32]:

They don’t feel empowered because there’s so much micromanagement. And actually really what our team members are looking for is for us to trust them and to empower them to get the job done and then get out their way and leave them to do it. And when we’ve got that, then people will get on and do the job. And then the other lens that I often see going on here is when again when we’ve got problems we want to fix the people, we always think it’s a people problem. And rather than think about, well, what is the potential our team members have got to unlock, how can we leverage them more effectively in the business? What new responsibilities can we give them? What new opportunities can we give them to help them thrive? You know, can we redefine their roles to give them a role which is more naturally aligned to what they love to do? Because we all know we’ve got more energy for the things we love to do. Right. And so if your role, you’re spending 50% of your time doing things you don’t love to do, in it, you’re never going to be as productive as if you’ve got a role maybe where you’ve got 80 or 90% of things time doing the things you love. Now, the caveat I would just say against this is we’re all going to have to do things in our role that we don’t love.

Julia Felton [00:10:50]:

That’s just life. But, you know, we want to spend the vast proportion of our time and when we can start redefining roles so that people do that, it makes a massive difference to their performance, their, you know, their productivity and then ultimately the productivity of the business. So, you know, I reflect back often to my corporate role where I didn’t understand about energy and the best roles that people could go in. And I had this data manager, her name’s Jane. And every single appraisal I was like, jane, you need to get better at spreadsheets, you know, because, you know, you’re running the data center and that’s what you need to do. Failing to realize that her complete zone of genius and what she bought to my business was actually her ability to rally the troops around. She was a great collaborator, a great people person, and I didn’t leverage her skills effectively. So she wasn’t as happy as she could be and I wasn’t getting the best results out of her.

Stuart Webb [00:11:46]:

Yeah, I know. I remember very early on, in one of the first businesses that I, that I founded, somebody took me home on time. It was one of the non executives that sort of came in to help the business, said, are you asking the people that you’re working with anything about, you know, what they do when they go home? And I, I sort of looked at, I’ll be honest, I looked at him. What’s that got to do with this? As in somehow, you know, he was talking complete nonsense. He said, you’ll find those people go home and they run scout groups, they run, they run charity bazaars, they run charities and they run them brilliantly. All of those skills are open to you. If you only knew about them. And I looked at him and thought, that’s a huge insight that I’ve got to think about.

Stuart Webb [00:12:30]:

And it was back to what you were saying there. It’s about communication, isn’t it? I haven’t bothered to say to these people, what else are you up to? And, you know, they turn us, oh, I run a scout group. Are you good at admin? And that’s a really useful thing to know because oftentimes people come into work and they sort of drop all these skills over their shoulder at the front door and then walk in and sort of just come in and do their job, don’t they? Because they don’t think they have to bring any of those skills with them because I’m at work now. And then they go home, they pick up all those skills again and they take them home and they use them very, very effectively. So sometimes it does mean that we’ve just got to speak to each other, ask what’s going on and then go, wow, that’s a really useful skill that we could use and then learn to let them get on with it.

Julia Felton [00:13:17]:

Yeah. And then, and then they feel more empowered, they feel trusted, you know, they know that they’ve been heard and you know, it’s a win, win all round at the end of. But yet so important for us to, to really know our team members, like you say, what motivates them, what’s inspires them and what the skills are that they’ve got that they’re not bringing to the workplace that we could really leverage more effectively.

Stuart Webb [00:13:39]:

Yeah, brilliant. Julia, I’m sure that there’s a. And I’m. I know you’ve given us some very valuable information to stick into our vault, which is at www.systemize.me/free stuff. Gosh, there’s an awful lot of words in there. Immediately after the longish break, talk to us about what you’ve got available for people to be able to sort of advice, guidance that you could give people which they can tap into. And all of this will be available in the vault.

Julia Felton [00:14:14]:

Yeah, sure. So where I always suggest that people start is I’ve got a turbocharge your team quiz, which you can get at businesshorsepower.com forward/quiz. And it’s. What is it? It’s about 15 questions that just really helps you identify where your team’s energy is getting drained. And what I often talk about is something called Team Ship, which we’ll get onto in a minute when we talk about books and stuff. But Team Ship is about how do you. How do you run your business? Rather than leadership, it’s all about teamship, people getting together. And then when you take the quiz, you actually get a free copy of my ebook on how to create a business that runs on teamship and the three pillars that actually underpin that.

Julia Felton [00:15:01]:

And then anyone who’s taken the quiz is also welcome to join me for a Turbocharger quiz audit where I help you unpack the results of the quiz in more detail so that you can start to put together a kind of a short plan on how to how you want to change things in your business going forward.

Stuart Webb [00:15:18]:

And I can, I can assure you because I’ve been on, had a look, good look at that stuff. If you go to systemize me free stuff, you’ll see all of the details of that. And Julia is really good at this stuff. So you will be pleasantly surprised when you see the level of detail that this goes into. Julia, yes, you’re right. We’re about to get on to other things. What was it that brought you to your understanding? You talked about your corporate career, you’ve talked a little bit about your passion for nature. How did you get to now books, courses, programs that enabled you to understand that teamship was actually the thing which needed to drive your day to day existence in your life now.

Julia Felton [00:16:10]:

Yeah, such a great question because I think, you know, once I left the corporate world, you know, like so many of us do, you know, you see things in the rear view mirror, right, that you didn’t see when you were in it. And you know, I look back and I just got really frustrated with the way that we were running and leading businesses. And as everything I looked to nature and horses were a big part of my life. And what I looked to was the way that horses actually operate as a unity in unity, you know, that a team is a horse herd is always concerned with the health, harmony and unity of the herd, how to keep it all together. And they employ something called, I call shared leadership at the time. And shared leadership is this concept of as a leader you don’t need to know everything. And let’s face it, you know, in the good old days before Mr. Google, you know, and we were in the industrial era, it was probably true that the factory manager, they did know everything, right? But that doesn’t exist today.

Julia Felton [00:17:13]:

So I think for any leader today, they want to know that it’s okay to share the leadership with each other. And horse herds do this so well. And we see this in a lot of other dynamics of animals in nature, but they share the leadership. They realize that not one animal can keep the whole herd safe. So in the horse herd, they share the leadership between everybody. But there is a lead marine and a lead stallion within the herd that, you know, have pacific roles and then everyone else in the herd looks for the danger. And I was like, well that would be so much better if that was a model that happened in business where everybody in the organization is responsible for the health and safety of the organization. So even though you are, you know, on the production line or, you know, you’re in the admin team or whatever it might be, you still have a duty of care to ensure that the business is going to stay successful.

Julia Felton [00:18:08]:

So if you see a competitor doing something, you should be able to speak up and say, did anyone else notice that going on over there? That could be a threat for us, you know, so it’s all these eyes and ears looking out. So it was when I read Keith Freshley’s book, Never Lead Alone. He t. He introduces this concept of teamship, which is effectively shared leadership. And I was like, it gave me kind of a framework and some language to use. So I’ve now created my own framework. It’s called the unbridled Teamship roadmap, which helps leaders create this high level of trust, adaptability and shared energy within their teams that we see within, particularly within horse herds, for example. So Keith Farazi, I have to acknowledge him, he kind of gave me the language for this, but it was my life experience of partnering with the horses and seeing things in the natural world, particularly when I lived in Africa, that that kind of bought these two worlds together.

Julia Felton [00:19:03]:

And I was like, yeah, this is a new framework for how we need to lead in the 21st century that is just going to be much more compelling and engaging for people.

Stuart Webb [00:19:13]:

And I think you’re right. The, the, the, the, the days of the command and control have largely gone, haven’t they? Because there are so too many, too many moving parts, too quickly moving for you to be able to make, to be able to control everything. And so unless you’re prepared to allow the leadership to spread, it will be impossible.

Julia Felton [00:19:38]:

And you just become a bottleneck as well as the leader. If you try and keep it all together, right, because everything’s moving so fast, you’ve just not got the capacity to make that many decisions all day, every day. So we’ve got to share it out. Otherwise your business is likely to, to stumble and falter just because you’ve just not got the brain power to do it. All right? So, you know, you can actually end up being the biggest risk factor in your business if you don’t share the leadership.

Stuart Webb [00:20:06]:

Yeah, that’s the challenge. So, Julie, there must be one question that I haven’t yet asked you that you really want me to ask, which will sort of open up, open up the eyes of people who are currently thinking, this is kind of me, but I’m not sure what is the question that you think I should have asked. And, and as you obviously know the question, you probably also know the answer. So what would the answer to that question be?

Julia Felton [00:20:35]:

Well, I hope I know the answer. I think it. I think it’s this reframe about how do we reframe leadership? Because we’re still seeing leadership through this lens of performance and results. And I get that. We’ve got to get that. But actually, how can we reframe leadership to be the role of a leader is more about how do you direct and orchestrate the energy of the people around you? Because performance is the byproduct of where our energy goes. So if we’re really clear on where our energy goes, where our attention is going, then we can get better results. And we see this all the time, don’t we, where you get leaders that something happens and they go, you know, they go in.

Julia Felton [00:21:17]:

This is frenetic, scattered energy all over the place. And that ripples through the team. It causes confusion and nobody knows what they’re doing, and everyone starts running around like headless chickens. And we’ve seen this so often in businesses, you know, when this firefighting throws in, but actually it just causes disarray. And how would it be if the leader recognized in. Actually, in that moment is the moment that you need to become more grounded, more coherent and really pause to go back to the rest and set and pause and. And just be discerning about what’s going on? Is this something that I really need to get frantic about right now, or is this something that I can just slow down, pay attention to and realize there’s different ways I can approach it? And that kind of coherence is very, very contagious within the team, and it slows all the team down. And then we’ve got.

Julia Felton [00:22:14]:

We can be just a lot more discerning then about the decisions that we really need to take. So I think for from when we start looking at leadership, my question would be that you didn’t ask is, you know, what if leadership isn’t about performance anymore, it’s about how do we orchestrate the ebb and flow of the energy of the team so that everyone can work from their natural stance. And therefore we’re shifting from this control stance to getting connection. We’re moving from burnout to flow, and we’re moving into really true leadership that is sustainable for everybody.

Stuart Webb [00:22:50]:

And do you therefore think, and I’m sorry, that I’m going to ask you a question when you’ve just answered a question, do you think in order to sort of support that the leader has to have been able to transmit their vision for the business to everybody. So that when they get into that state of flow, they’re able to operate without constantly referring back and saying, why are we doing this again? I’ve forgotten.

Julia Felton [00:23:14]:

Yeah, absolutely. That’s 100% at the top of everything. If nobody knows where they’re going, nobody knows where we’re going to end up. You know, I often when my clients, you know, I say, well, you know, there’s so many different ways that we could maybe get to. I’m in the uk, so I could get to London at the end of. End of this call, right? But I got to know I’m going to London, otherwise the team will end up in Edinburgh or somebody will end up in Dublin or somebody will fly to New York. Right? And I think having that really clear purpose and vision absolutely underpins everything because it’s. That, for me, is the glue that pulls everyone in the right direction.

Julia Felton [00:23:48]:

And we need to remember that. We need to continually articulate that to come back to communication. It’s very easy for people to go, I’ve told everyone the vision and we expect people to remember it, right? But we have to be embedded into absolutely everything. Everything we do day in, day out needs to be aligned with the vision because people don’t remember, you know, and I know from, you know, having run workshops with clients, I. I remember I run the same workshop, I hosted the same venue, like, four, no, five or six times in a row, and my client attended as a guest each time because it was her venue and it was a particular workshop. Actually, I was running with the horses. And she said to me on the sixth workshop, she goes, that bit you said about xyz, that was a genius, Julia. And I was like, God, that has been in every single workshop.

Stuart Webb [00:24:36]:

It’s such cool content.

Julia Felton [00:24:38]:

And she hadn’t heard it. And of course, this is what we forget about communication. People only hear what they want to hear when they want to hear it. So we’ve got to keep repeating the vision where we want to go to the strategy. And sometimes I think as leaders, we. You can feel a bit like a broken record. We’re like, I’ve told everyone that. But people only hear it and get it when they want to hear it.

Julia Felton [00:25:00]:

Yes, absolutely. Underpins everything, Stuart. Yeah, And. And I think, you know, when we put that clear purpose, that really builds trust because people know, right? People have got that clarity about where we’re going. We know what the outcomes are, we know where we’re heading. So people have got trust that what’s going to happen. We. We’ve got a.

Julia Felton [00:25:18]:

We’ve got a vision, we’ve got a plan. And so that really helps.

Stuart Webb [00:25:20]:

Wonderful, wonderful. Julia, this has been really, really, really wonderful. It’s a really great way to sort of. For me to kick off what we do this year. Just one small thing from me, if you don’t mind.

Julia Felton [00:25:36]:

Yeah.

Stuart Webb [00:25:37]:

I send out about one email a week on the weeks where we’re doing a podcast, and it just. It just tells you who’s coming up and why you need to get in front of the. And be live. We’ve had a number of people, tens of people watching this today. So they got that from, you know, they’ve sat at the desk. They hopefully some of them have gone away and thought, I’ve got some problems I need to resolve. So if you would like to be one of those people who gets the email that sort of says, somebody’s coming up, go to www.systemize. that’s S Y S T E M I S E.com forward slash, subscribe.

Stuart Webb [00:26:13]:

Simple form. It asks you for just your first name and an email address. I don’t want any more than that because I just want to send you an email which basically says it’s coming up, so please go do that. Julia, this has been really enlightening to start with. Wonderful reset of what we should be doing as leaders. Thinking about trying to sort of allow the energy and allow the natural talents to sort of dominate rather than somehow trying to force everybody down into a narrow path in order to sort of make things happen. So thank you so much for bringing that to us, and I really appreciate you spending some time with it. No problem at all.

Julia Felton [00:26:48]:

Thank you so much.

Stuart Webb [00:26:49]:

Thank you very much.

Julia Felton [00:26:50]:

Thank you so much indeed, Stuart. Really appreciate it. It’s been a pleasure.

Stuart Webb [00:27:19]:

So I can talk to you.

Who is Patrick?

Patrick Van der Burght’s journey began over 25 years ago, when he first discovered the transformative power of understanding human behaviour and research. Awed by how empowering and effective these insights were—without the need to lie or cheat—he quickly became passionate about sharing them. Today, as a sought-after keynote speaker, Patrick relishes witnessing audiences experience their own “aha” moments, just as he did decades ago. His mission is to help others unlock their potential by waking up to the profound impact of his teaching, sparking realization, growth, and change wherever he speaks.

Key Takeaways

The Secret Science Behind Getting a YES—Without Being Manipulative

1/ Ever felt “icky” trying to get someone to say yes? Turns out, ethical persuasion isn’t about tricking—it’s about understanding human behavior. Patrick Van der Burght dropped some serious knowledge on this in his chat with Stuart Webb on “It’s Not Rocket Science.” 👀☕️

2/ Persuasion isn’t just for salespeople. It’s for anyone who wants their ideas accepted—bosses, parents, partners, even project managers. If you want to move people (literally and figuratively), these insights are gold.💡

3/ Fun fact: The World Economic Forum ranked leadership & social influence as TOP business skills for the next 5 years. And persuasion came in at #3 on hiring wishlists. Why? Because it’s POWERFUL.✨

4/ But here’s where most people mess up: They use random “strategies” or lengthy logical pitches, thinking more info = more yeses. Uh…no. Patrick Van der Burght: “You might accidentally talk people OUT of saying yes!” 😅

5/ Why? Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman says our brains make 90–95% of decisions FAST and unconsciously (System 1)—not by analyzing facts, but relying on shortcuts.Your audience has an attention span SHORTER THAN A GOLDFISH. They won’t analyze your 2-minute pitch! 🐠

6/ The trick? Use the 7 Universal Principles of Persuasion (from Dr. Cialdini):

* Reciprocity: Give first—genuinely. Free PDF, no strings attached? Magic.

* Liking: Compliment, connect, be authentic.

* Unity: Create community bonds—“we’re in this together.”

* Social Proof: Show reviews, testimonials (the detailed ones count!)

* Authority: Let OTHERS introduce your expertise. It’s more credible.

* Consistency: Get small commitments first. People stick to what they start.

* Scarcity: Highlight what they’ll LOSE by not acting. We value what’s rare.

7/ Pro tip: Five-star reviews everywhere can actually REDUCE credibility. Aim for an average of 4.2–4.7. Realness wins trust! ⭐️

8/ If you’re endlessly pumping time & money in, hoping for incremental “yes” rates, STOP! Persuasion science can 10X your results—without hurting your integrity or reputation.

9/ Want to dive deeper into ethical persuasion and grab some of Patrick Van der Burght’s free stuff? Visit EthicalPersuasion.com or check out his podcast, “Ethical Persuasion Unlocked.”

10/ Last word from Patrick Van der Burght: “If you want those yeses that were always yours to have, learn the science.”

Ready to persuade with integrity?👇#EthicalPersuasion #SalesTips #Leadership #DrCialdini #BehavioralScience #Marketing #SmallBusiness

—Drop a comment: Which principle are you going to test out first?

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

ethical persuasion, persuasion techniques, sales strategies, Cialdini principles, reciprocity, social proof, authority, scarcity, consistency, liking principle, unity principle, behavioral science, Daniel Kahneman, decision making, system one thinking, system two thinking, attention span, sales psychology, B2B persuasion, ethical sales, lead generation, business coaching, influence tactics, customer testimonials, compliance, negotiation skills, persuasive communication, loss aversion, marketing psychology, consumer behavior

SPEAKER

Patrick Van Der Burght, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:32]:

Hi there, and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. I have in front of me my coffee. This is, this is going to keep me going as I’m chatting today to Patrick Vanderburg. Patrick is. Well, Patrick’s an expert in how you get to go, to get somebody to say yes ethically. Now, if you’ve ever been in sales, if you’ve ever been trying to help anybody understand the need to say yes, and you only feel dirty and somehow manipulative when you try and do it, this is getting somebody to do that by ethically helping them to understand how they are going to be benefited from, from your product, your service, from working with you. So, Patrick, I’m really delighted to welcome you here to talk about the.

Stuart Webb [00:01:20]:

This Cini method. And I’m doing delighted you managed to make a few minutes available to us in order to talk to us. So welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:01:32]:

Thank you for inviting me, Stuart. I’m excited to be here. And I remember quite clearly when I first was introduced to this and I was learning the insights and human behavior, the research, how amazing that was and how empowering that was. And I couldn’t believe how, you know, how potent, how powerful it is, and you didn’t have to lie or cheat to make it to work either. And I love seeing that in, you know, when I do a keynote and, you know, people are starting to wake up to the fact of what I’m actually teaching them, you see, the eyes go bigger and I know they’re having that same realization that I had, goodness, 25, 26 years ago. So while we can’t see our audience, of course I’m hoping those eyes are getting a little bigger in the, in the time that we’ve got together.

Stuart Webb [00:02:24]:

I absolutely agree with you, Patrick. And, and people, if you’re watching at the moment, look, please, if you have questions whilst we’re talking, or indeed after we finish, if you come to the recording of this and you’re interested in getting some more information and you wanted to understand, we’ll talk about how you can get some free stuff from PA Patrick. But also if you want to drop questions or comments into the chat below, we will answer them for you. So you get sort of free consultancy immediately from an expert like Patrick. So, but Patrick, let’s start by trying to sort of set the scene. Let’s understand what we’re talking about. You have been working in this field for a while, so what is it? Who is it you’re trying to reach. I, I mentioned salespeople, but it’s not just sales, is it? It could be anybody trying to sort of help understand a person problem and help sort of work with somebody who needs to better understand what they’re trying to do themselves.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:03:19]:

Yeah, ethical persuasion really is a soft skill that we all need. And as a matter of fact, the World Economic Forum did a study that they published last January looking at thousands of companies in terms of what businesses need moving forward in the next five years. And leadership and social influence was just another word of it. For, for ethical persuasion had been increased in priority from position number four, which was in the previous report, to position number three. And also another study done by CashNet, which was published by Forbes that looked at 17 million job listings in terms of what businesses are asking for in their new employees. And persuasion was also ranked there, number three. And it is a skill that helps us professionally, but also privately and simply put, whenever we’re trying to get an idea accepted or get somebody to buy into what we’re suggesting or asking for, and that can be sale, it doesn’t have to be whenever we’re trying to make that request and there’s someone in the middle that needs to agree with that. And you’re relying on your ability to be persuasive in terms of how quickly you will move to your goals or move to your boss’s goals.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:04:40]:

But that also applies privately. If you try to get your kids to clean up their room, you’ll need to be persuasive. And if you want your partner to really go to that holiday destination in the coming summer, then you’re going to have to be persuasive. So this comes back everywhere. And that’s the beauty of it. You can use it in both in business and privately and ethically without having to, you know, bend or tarnish your integrity.

Stuart Webb [00:05:09]:

So we’re talking about a way to help you get your message across to somebody to sell somebody on your idea. So you might be a project manager trying to persuade a customer or a team member in order to sort of meet your timeline. You might be a salesperson trying to sell your product. You could be the CEO attempting to persuade an entire company that the strategy you’ve got is worth coming. This is applicable to everybody. And I think it’s important to recognize, as you just said, that you don’t just use these skills at work, you use these skills when you get home from, get home from work. And you might find yourself in the situation where your partner is trying to Persuade you to eat that salad rather than the steak you want. So, you know, they are probably going to be wanting to try and sell you on something that you recognize probably is good for you, but you don’t want to go there.

Stuart Webb [00:06:00]:

So these are really important skills. So what is it you find that people have done? I mean, what are the, one of the routes people have tried? I mean, I’ve known that I’ve tried sort of, you know, processes. I’ve tried buying into people sort of, you know, this 16 step method to get somebody to say yes. And we’ve all tried these things. What is it they’ve tried to do before they come across something like you and the method that you’re, you’re now you’re no teaching.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:06:28]:

Well, I suppose we should recognize that of course, everybody tries lots and lots of different things to see what works. Right. And so in different industries we’ve bumped into particular things that we somehow were figured out that worked, strategies that worked. And we don’t really understand why they worked, they just do. And actually that’s exactly what Dr. Robert Cialdini, my partner, how he started with all this. He became a university professor in the late 70s and he was fascinated with the request process. What makes an individual say yes to another person’s request? And how can it be that I can make a request one way and get a small amount of yeses and I can ask basically the same request but in a different way and I get a lot more yeses.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:07:25]:

He was fascinated by that. And he realized at the time that there was, back then in the late 70s, there was already nearly 50 years worth of scientific research on persuasion. But it was all laboratory stuff, laboratory experiments and put somebody in a controlled environment and then sort of experiment on them. And so he realized that, you know, if he really wanted to know how, how this worked, he would have to go into the real world where the battles of persuasion and influence are fought every single day. And so he did something that was unheard of for a scientist at that time. He took three years off and he, he, with disguised identity and disguised intent, he enrolled in as many new employee training courses could possibly get access to. Because he, you know, like I mentioned, in every industry we figure out a lot of trial and error. We figure out some things that work for us.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:08:30]:

And so he collected all these strategies from all these different industries. And all these industries all, all told how different they were. Right? And the departments would tell them how different they were. As in the people in sales would say, oh, what we do in advertising is so, or what we do in sales so different than what they do in advertising. And the people in advertising would say, oh, what we do is so different than what happens in marketing. And marketing would do the same with hr. So they were all trying to convey how different they were, but Dr. Cialdini actually looked for what was it that was similar in those strategies.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:09:09]:

What is it that makes it work? So, you know, when you say, you know, what do people often try? I think we, we try a lot, a lot, a lot of different things and we waste a lot of time and resources and we sometimes bump into something that we, that we learn works and then we tend to go with that. The problem is that sometimes we also land on strategies that are not exactly ethical and then we’re risking our brand and our reputation, which nowadays can be very quickly destroyed. And what can also happen is that when we don’t know the science, that sometimes accidentally. And this happens so much more often than you’d realize, sometimes people use an argument and they’re actually very effectively working against what they’re trying to achieve. And so that happens all the time as well.

Stuart Webb [00:10:03]:

Yeah. So this is where we get to what I hope is going to be the valuable piece of advice that you’re going to live with. Leave with us Patrick. And, and for those people who are gonna, there’s, there’s some free stuff that we’re gonna put from Patrick in our vault. So if you go to systemize me forward slash free hyphen stuff, you’ll find some offers for, from Patrick where he’s gonna, he’s gonna be able to walk you through some of this stuff. But I’m gonna ask you. So, Patrick, what can you tell us about the ethical persuasion that Dr. Cialdini has? I’m not gonna say it’s discovered.

Stuart Webb [00:10:37]:

I mean, he’s, he’s, he’s using human psychology and he’s understanding human psychology. So he’s discovered how people react to this stuff and how you can use these persuasive methods. So would you mind just sort of giving that valuable sort of high level. How do you, how do you do this sort of thing so that people get interested? And then hopefully, as I say, we’ll, we’ll be, we’ll be grabbing hold of some of your free stuff. So just walk us through an example, if you like, of how do you get somebody to say yes ethically?

Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:08]:

Okay. So it all depends on the situation. So it’s hard to say, oh, this is one way how you do that. But I think.

Stuart Webb [00:11:14]:

Exactly.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:16]:

Or your audience would. Would gain a lot from if we first discussed how human beings actually make decisions. And then from there, it then starts making sense, why these principles are so powerful and we can do a quick run.

Stuart Webb [00:11:29]:

Great way of doing it. Great way of doing it. Great way of doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:35]:

So when it comes to decision making, I’m going to lean on the work of a professor. Daniel Kahneman was a professor in psychology and a behavioral scientist, and he won.

Stuart Webb [00:11:45]:

A Nobel Prize, if I remember rightly.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:11:48]:

Absolutely. He won a Nobel Prize in 2002 in economics, which is a little unexpected. Right. Behavioral scientist wins Nobel Prize in Economics. I mean, what can you come up with in behavioral science that has such an impact on economics that you win a Nobel Prize for it? Well, a lot of his research was about decision making, and decisions shape economics. So that’s where the link is. So Daniel Kahneman explains, when it comes to decision making, your brain, your audience’s brain has two parts, System one and system two. System one is fast.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:12:28]:

It’s an unconscious brain. It operates outside of conscious control, and we use it for everyday decisions. It’s automatic, and it largely works on shortcuts, rules of thumb. So, for example, you’re shopping for something that you have no idea about how it works or what makes it a good product or not. And so you could delay your decision and you could go hit the books in the library, and for months on end, you could read books about that particular topic, then come back to the store and then make an educated decision. But chances are you haven’t got the time for that. So perhaps a shortcut pops up in the back of your head and a shortcut says expensive equals good.

Stuart Webb [00:13:14]:

Yes.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:13:15]:

Right. We’ve learned from experience. Often if we spend a bit more money, then chances are we’ll get something that’s better, lasts longer, better suited to purpose. And so in that moment, you might say, you know what? I’m just going to spend a little bit more money. And then I’ll probably have done the right thing. And you know what? That’s exactly what will happen. You will probably have done the right thing. Because these shortcuts, they stick with us because they work most of the time, but inevitably, they don’t work all the time.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:13:49]:

Sometimes expensive things are still rubbish, right? But it is very attractive to follow these shortcuts. The rule expensive equals good allows us a path to a quicker decision. Right? And so there’s other shortcuts like that. And intuitively, we know these as well. One for Example is if a lot of other people are doing it, then it must be the right thing to do. Right? And so that’s how system one works. Let’s move to system two for a moment. So system two, on the other hand, is a slow brain.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:14:28]:

Takes slow, you know, takes time to process. It costs a lot of energy, costs a lot of effort. And system two is conscious thinking. And because it takes a lot of effort, Daniel Kahneman actually referred to it as the lazy controller. It doesn’t actually want to engage. It’s quite happy to take the decisions of system one unless there’s, you know, alarm bells going off. So system two is our logical brain, right? It can look at all the information in the situation and then we can come up with the most rational decision based on that. So let’s say if we’re comparing two washing machines, or we need to make a decision, or somebody comes at us with a logical proposal for us to dissect that, we need system two.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:15:16]:

Great. Now there’s a caveat with system two. System two depends on our attention.

Stuart Webb [00:15:26]:

And.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:15:26]:

We have a limited budget of attention every single day. And so to give you an example, parking a car in a tight parking spot, that requires system two. You can imagine if you’re not paying attention, if you don’t have attention, you’re not going to do a great job parking a car in a tight spot. So Daniel Kahneman demonstrates back in 2002 that 90%, that’s 90. 90% of our decisions are made by System 1 automatically and outside our conscious control. And now it said that that’s more like 95%, possibly even higher. And so here a couple of problems bubble up. First of all, you might ask, why is this percentage increasing? Well, that has to do with our attention span.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:16:18]:

As I said, System two is reliant on attention. Our attention span was 20 minutes in the 80s. Do you know what the attention span of the famous goldfish is, Stuart?

Stuart Webb [00:16:30]:

Yeah, it’s a lot less than 20 minutes. And it’s very close to my attention span, which is about 22 seconds, 9.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:16:38]:

Seconds, supposedly for the goldfish. Our attention span is now 7 seconds. Yeah, we’ve been beaten by the goldfish. Right. And so system two relies on our attention. And so this, this brings us to the big problem that we have in business and privately as well. But let’s concentrate on business. When you’re sitting there and you’re thinking, okay, how am I going to convince this, let’s say in lead generation that doesn’t know me yet, how am I going to convince them to start communicating with me through, let’s say social media, post or flyer, you send out, that sort of stuff.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:17:21]:

Or maybe you’re thinking how when I’m actually doing a sales presentation to a person, group of people, how am I going to convince them that our product is right for them and, and you know, their trust is not misplaced in us. Right. And that they, they, they can avail themselves of, of our services or our product, be loyal to us. When we are con, when we are thinking about how we’re going to convince other people. You’re thinking that’s conscious thought. And so at that moment you’re using system two, your logical, rational part of the brain. And the problem is that that part of the brain tends to come up with the arguments, the rationale, why you should listen to me, why you should accept what I’m proposing to you. And that type of information would need system two in the other person to take care of it or to analyze it and to process it.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:22]:

And our audience doesn’t have the time for it anymore.

Stuart Webb [00:18:26]:

Our audience is using system one and they have seven seconds to grasp your message. And you’ve got a message which is two minutes long, haven’t you?

Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:35]:

Yeah. But also you raise information that just does not qualify as information System one can use as in a shortcut type of information.

Stuart Webb [00:18:48]:

Yeah.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:18:49]:

And so what happens is that we actually cause more uncertainty in our audience and they push back from you, from you and your wonderful genuinely good for them value proposal and they decide not to decide. And so I would argue that if you, I know, let’s say you make a thousand proposals, right. You get a certain amount of yeses out of those. And the other people didn’t go along with your proposal, your request. Right. So some people might have just straight out told you, no, it’s not for me. Other people might have told you other things. Oh, it’s too expensive, got to talk to my partner, come back next week.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:19:34]:

You know, all these sorts of things. I would argue that out of all the no’s you got, there is a much larger percentage than you can imagine that weren’t actually nos, they were indecision. And they could have been yes, had you provided the right types of information. And this is where the transition to the principles of persuasion come in. Is that the principles of persuasion the Dr. Cialdini identified or qualify as system one information. Does that make sense so far?

Stuart Webb [00:20:09]:

It certainly does. It certainly does. And you can see it, as you’ve said, in, in every situation where people are in this situation, they have thought and they start providing lots of information. You can almost watch business people, people who are buying services start to glaze over as they have to think, oh, I’m going to have to engage my brain, I don’t have time for this now. I would prefer not to have to all this information. So would you mind just going away please because I just don’t want to have to deal with this. Thank you very much. And that’s the end of the conversation, isn’t it?

Patrick Van der Burght [00:20:44]:

Yeah. And maybe, maybe in, I mean of course, to some extent we are of course successful, right? If we’ve been in business for a long period of time, of course we’re making money, we’re making profit, we’re making payroll, otherwise we wouldn’t been there anymore. So to some extent we’re successful because we figured out a couple of little strategies that have worked for us. But now imagine that your one little strategy is, or two strategies you might have uncovered is, is one out of a dozen that are one principles of persuasion. And there’s seven of those. There’s so many more strategies that would make it easier for people to make a yes decision. And so without it, you’re, you’re losing so much time, resources, competitive advantage, not knowing the science. It’s a, it’s a little bit like an architect trying to build a skyscraper without knowing the science.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:21:40]:

Right. The results are not going to be so great. But yeah, the problem is with a lot of, or with everybody that doesn’t know the science, they don’t actually know, they’re in agony. They have no idea that, you know, and they, you know, they might do lead generating efforts and just pour more money in it to create the same small results, just more of them just because they invested more in it. But if you actually use the science, your success rate would be where it really should have been all that time. And so by learning some science we can actually get the yeses that were always ours to have.

Stuart Webb [00:22:17]:

Do you know, I’m very aware of the fact that too many times people are not necessarily. And it comes back to a background that I’ve got in science as well. People don’t test their ideas, they just, they just look at it and go, well, that worked, we’ll do more of the same. And sometimes doing more of the same is crazy because you will get the same results, only bigger. And, and if the results you have got is only a tiny, tiny increase in your percentage profit and you pour more money at a strategy and you get a Tiny. Another small increase, then that’s not really tested to sort of find the best way, is it? That’s just sort of, okay, I’ve done one thing, I’m going to try and get the same result, but. But I’m doing it the same way. You can’t get a different result by just carrying on doing the same thing.

Stuart Webb [00:23:04]:

I’m very. But I’m really bought into the idea that you’ve sort of given us here, which is about scientific testing, about, you know, using these methods to actually trial these things to make it work for us.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:23:15]:

Yeah, and you hit an interesting point on the head there that, you know, sometimes we hear things and, you know, bless us for doing this interview and podcast. People might get some ideas from there, from here, and I hope they use it and hope they profit from it. But there’s a lot of subtle nuances that, you know, if you pick up a little bit of a clue from something, you might be doing something that works and it works a lot better than you used to do. And then you’re sort of, oh, great, now I’ve got it. But you don’t actually understand the subtle nuances that it would amplify the effects. So you’re still missing out. So you might be thinking, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, reciprocity, we got to give people stuff, right? Most people have figured that out, but the amount of people that get that wrong is enormous and easy. Example, there’s lots of businesses that have a, you know, a free ebook on their website, right? Oh, we have a wonderful ebook for you.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:24:13]:

Just put your name in and your email address. We’ll send you the download link. Our gift to you. Nice try, but that’s not going to activate reciprocity, because reciprocity, a gift that’s given a gift, is something that comes without a requirement that needs to be met.

Stuart Webb [00:24:33]:

Yes. Right.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:24:34]:

And so name and email address first, then we’ll send you the download link. That was a reward. Right. And so people feel like they’re paid for that ebook with their email address, which you’re likely going to put on your newsletter. Right. So, and I’m not saying that, you know, a free downloadable ebook is not a good lead generator. I’m just saying if you think that’s going to activate the power of reciprocity, then you’re making a big mistake. What instead, or maybe complementary to that approach would work.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:25:05]:

Well, to activate reciprocity is to have a simple PDF with, I don’t know, let’s say you’re in finance or let’s say retirements or something, right? You might make a checklist that says, listen, if you’re looking to retire in the next 10 years, these are the 15 things that you should not fail to get lined up now so that you, you know, you’ve got your eggs lined up as you move into the future for a good retirement sort of a thing. And then put that on your website and just tell people, just right click and download, no email required now. It’s a gift, right now. It builds that reciprocity and that feeling that, you know, that was really nice. That was, that was a, you know, that was interesting and valuable information. And so next time when you come with another request, I know which might be, hey, we’ve got a big webinar on, come join us.

Stuart Webb [00:25:55]:

Now.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:25:56]:

You’re going to be empowered by that principle of reciprocity.

Stuart Webb [00:26:00]:

Brilliant, Patrick. And you’ve just given us a few examples. I need to remind people, if they want to get more of this stuff, go to Systemize me Free stuff. You’ll see some stuff that Patrick’s got which we’re putting in there, which you will really love. Patrick, what is it? I mean, this was, this has been a big part of your life for 25 years. But, but this isn’t something that you sort of just discovered out of accent. How did you come to sort of understand what Dr. Cialdini is doing and, and, and really start your journey in understanding the ethics and ethical way of persuading people to that.

Stuart Webb [00:26:41]:

Yes.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:26:44]:

I found my way to it when I was a sales rep quite a while ago. I was selling scuba diving equipment wholesale to retailers and I was based in Melbourne in Australia. And so I was looking after Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, which is a decent clump of land. And I was putting in a lot of effort. I loved what I was doing. I was a dive instructor myself and so I was sort of doing what I loved. I was every day I was talking to people who had the same passion as me. So it was a great job to be in, but I sort of felt that for the amount of time I was investing in it, I wasn’t seeing the growth in my territory that I thought I should have seen.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:27:24]:

And sometimes I saw my retailers falling victim to dodgy promises and stuff from other sales reps and I didn’t want to do that sort of stuff either. So I wanted to be better at my work, but I didn’t want to lie or cheat either. And yeah, timing, I suppose, was perfect. My boss, the wholesaler, he got the services of A business coach, which is of course good. And he got some strategies and insights on how to grow his business. And part of that was that, well, back then at least, scuba diving retailers are lovely people and they love, they have a passion for what they do, but they’re not necessarily great business people. So the idea was to train us sales reps into sort of a low level business coach where we can do exercises and goal setting and strategies and that sort of stuff with our retailers, help them grow or double their business. And then by definition we would double our business with them, probably more because of course, reciprocity.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:28:29]:

Right. They’d feel indebted to us and probably stock more of our stuff. And so anyway, business coach was based in, in Melbourne. And he said, John McDonald’s gentleman’s names, name was. And he said, listen, Patrick, with all these strategies that we’re explaining, if you ever have any questions, we’re just here in Vermont, just come by the office and we can have a cup of tea and discuss it. And Stuart, I, I don’t know if you’ve ever met a Dutch person on holiday and then by mistake you say, listen, if you’re ever in our neck of the woods, right, you need a place to stay, come on over, you can stay with us. Don’t do that with Dutch people. They turn up and so did I.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:29:13]:

So I was visiting John and so I was, you know, I was asking question he liked because often people, you know, they might implement a strategy and it doesn’t work straight away and then dismiss it straight away, right, Instead of saying, hey, what am I not doing, right? Why I’m not getting the results that we should be getting. And he really liked that because I would come back and ask these questions and he started lending me educational series on cassette tapes, you know, things that used to cost twelve hundred dollars or twelve hundred pounds, expensive stuff. And so I was borrowing this stuff and anyway, there was a series called Mind Capture of an event that happened in Los Angeles and Dr. Cialdini was on there with two cassette tapes and it blew me away. I just love the science behind it. Human behaviors, interesting, funny, hilarious, sometimes absolutely terrifying, but always fascinating. And then I was, I had a challenge at work and I used that with a particular brand that had a bit of, a bit of difficulty. And basically within 12 months we were market leader with that brand.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:30:18]:

And so, yeah, I was converted for life.

Stuart Webb [00:30:21]:

As I say, brilliant, Patrick, that’s this great story, but I have the impression, and maybe this is just me that you currently are thinking he’s still not asked me that killer key question that he should have asked me by now. Well, I don’t know what that killer key question is, so I’m going to ask you to tell me. Well, what’s the killer key question I should have asked you by now? And obviously, once you’ve asked the question, you need to answer it for us.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:30:50]:

Well, I think you failed to ask me. Or I was. I said I was going to run down it, but we didn’t get to it. Let’s do a rundown of the seven principles, what they mean in some quick.

Stuart Webb [00:31:00]:

Please do, please do.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:31:04]:

All right, so there’s seven universal principles of persuasion. Why do we call them universal? Because they work in all. All cultures, all languages, and all countries. That is in itself amazing and very powerful because our cultures are intermixed and it’s much easier to do business with people in other countries. So this is a skill that works everywhere and with everyone. All right, so there’s seven of those principles in no particular order. Let’s start with reciprocity, because we mentioned it already. So reciprocity works on the rule, the shortcut that people tend to want to give back the same type of behavior that was first given to them.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:31:50]:

Right. If I invite you to my birthday party, well, then really you ought to invite me to your birthday party. Right. If I remember your birthday with a card or a gift, well, then you should remember mine. And so in the context of compliance, we are more likely to say yes to people that we owe. Okay, so that’s great. And as I mentioned, a lot of people in business think they know it, but don’t actually know it. And so they dive into that not actually doing it.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:32:20]:

Right. So a good thing to help you is to ask yourself, how can I help this person genuinely? Not as a mechanism to produce reciprocity, to just be helpful, to be valuable and look after that person. Person. And often just being a interested and caring person is already a great step towards being persuasive. So that’s reciprocity. Let’s say. I already gave you an example of how we could use that. So let’s move on.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:32:51]:

Liking is another principle. We like people that are like us, who like us and who like us and say so.

Stuart Webb [00:33:03]:

Yeah, Right.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:33:04]:

So to unpack that a little bit, we like people that are like us means we like people that are similar to us.

Stuart Webb [00:33:13]:

Yep. Yep.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:33:14]:

Then we like people that like us, which is the opposite of what sales typically teaches you. Sales teaches you if you want people to buy from you, then you should do what you can so that people like you. You got to be likable, and that’s not wrong. But if I get the feeling that you really like me, even if I don’t, not quite sure about you, if I get the feeling that you genuinely like me, well, then I’m safe with you, aren’t I? Because people that like you look after you, right? And then like you and say so that is compliments, right? So. And actually, on my podcast, we just released an episode about liking. And so, you know, one of the messages in there was pay someone a compliment. Try it. First person you see today, look for anything, anything’s game, what they wear, tie, nails, earrings, hair, shoes, whatever, just whatever you genuinely like.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:34:15]:

Pay them a compliment, watch what happens. It could be your kids, could be your wife when you come home, Pay them a compliment, watch what happens. All right, so it’s liking unity. Unity is often confused with liking. And unity is also the last principle that Dr. Cialdini added. Unity is about a feeling of being part of the same community. If we feel that we’re, let’s say, from the same town, or this, sometimes we’re from the same country, if we’re in another country or if we co create, if we make things together, we feel we have a bond between us and that inspires favoritism.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:34:56]:

And the favoritism can make you hear. Yes, a lot more often. Very powerful principle.

Stuart Webb [00:35:02]:

Yeah.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:03]:

All right, then we have social proof. Most people know the term social proof. The reason you know it is because Dr. Cialdini came up with it. Used to be consensus before that, but it was a little bit unclear. So he came up with the term social proof. Social proof means that we follow the actions of others, especially when they are numerous, when the others are similar to us, and when we are uncertain, that basically means we follow the crowd. Brain research actually shows that for a lot of people, the pain centers in the brain light up when we are out of step with what other people are doing.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:43]:

It’s painful for some people to not follow the crowd, but it also makes sense, right? If a lot of people are doing something, if a lot of people run away, it’s probably not a good idea.

Stuart Webb [00:35:52]:

You should run away.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:35:53]:

Yeah, exactly. So in business, we’ve caught on the fact of testimonials, right? As in most people are now collecting testimonials. That’s great. And if you think that that’s valuable for your business, well, then you’re correct. And that falls under ethical persuasion, provided they’re genuine. But in terms of social proof. You’re only using one little strategy out of probably more than a dozen different approaches when it comes to social proof. So there’s a lot more like that where that came from.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:36:24]:

Maybe a little insight in terms of testimonials. 98% of online shoppers say that detailed online reviews are an important factor on when deciding what and where to buy. The key to remember there is detailed, right? So if you ask somebody to leave you a review, I think it’s perfectly ethical to ask them to leave a bit of a detailed review. We imagine a restaurant and they go, yeah, food was great. That doesn’t feel so genuine. Right. But when we have more details, oh, the pumpkin was just cooked to perfection and the servers were so nice. And Sally the waitress, he was so funny.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:37:08]:

Right. More detail now we believe it more. What’s more.

Stuart Webb [00:37:16]:

One of the fact, one of the, one of the things you find in the, in the, in the reviews where people have bought them in for one, for want of a better word, is there’s that lack of detail which makes you feel as though they’re not genuine. And you immediately look and go, they’re probably all fake, aren’t they? Because there’s just no detail there which makes you feel as though that person actually was in that situation.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:37:37]:

Yeah. And did you, Stuart? We all want our customers to be completely happy and over the moon with the products and services we’ve provided. Right. And so we all want them to leave a five star review, you know, in relation to what they’ve experienced with us. But this, all these reviews are going to be boiled down to an average number, right? As in this business has an average score rating of so much. What would we want that average score rating to ideally be? What do you think?

Stuart Webb [00:38:12]:

We all want it to be a 5, don’t we?

Patrick Van der Burght [00:38:15]:

I want it to be a 5. But is a 5 average review score most realistic, As in the most persuasive range for an average score is 4.2 to 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 and 5 are seen as too good a deal. Right? Nobody is this good. You got all your friends to leave five star reviews. You deleted the bad ones. Even if that’s not possible, people don’t know, right? So it lacks credibility where 4.2 to 4.7 has credibility and it’s still for most people high enough to want to deal with that company under 4.2 has credibility. But this is getting too low for people to want to deal with. So yeah, next time you get a two or Three star review, right? Don’t take it so bad.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:16]:

If your average score is Moving towards that 4.7, you’re in the perfect place.

Stuart Webb [00:39:21]:

Place.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:22]:

All right, so social proof. Moving on then. We have authority as number five. Authority is that we follow the act, so we follow the advice of people that know genuinely more about a particular topic than we do. As in, we follow experts. That’s why it helps to bring in expert opinions that support your proposal. But you, you yourself, you are also an expert in your own field. And so you also need to have a way to convey that to other people.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:39:56]:

And the truth is that once you’re face to face with people, you have lost the opportunity to talk about your credentials. And people try, you see it all the time, right? Oh, I’ve got a master’s degree in this and I’ve done that and I’ve done this, right. And while we do that because we want our audience to, to respect what we’re saying, to process our words with the gravity that they deserve, but the subconscious of our audience goes, you are full of yourself. We lose on authority and we lose on liking. It’s lose, lose. So we have to arrange for those credentials to be conveyed before we meet someone. Which is exactly the reason why, you know, when you step on the stage as a speaker, there’s normally a master of ceremonies, an emcee that introduces who you are. So authority is raised and people process the words you say with the gravity they deserve from the beginning.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:40:59]:

If you fail to do that properly, then you might be talking to somebody for an hour and you may establish over time that you do have that authority. But that means that they didn’t process your words as well, the beginning. So you’ve lost that. All right, so that’s authority. Authority is also about believability. Then we have principle of consistency that is powered by the fact that we feel an internal pressure to want to stay true to past actions and statements that we’ve made. You know, sometimes, you know, online, when you’re filling in an online form, it questions, right? Let’s say there’s 10 questions to fill in. If you list all those questions in one row and then the submit button, a lot less people will fill out that form.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:41:47]:

They’ll just navigate away where if you break that form up in say three, four pages and you give people two, three things to fill out and then click next, it is much harder to now stop because they’re already done some right. So you’re using that consistency principle to get your form filled out. Which is again, just another behavior. So consistency, very, very powerful principle. And then last one is scarcity. So scarcity tells us that we value things more when they are less available. We all have that fear of loss within us. And if I can give a, let’s say a power tip to your listeners, and this would probably be it, have a look at your own communication, listen to your salespeople, what are they saying? Read your own brochures, read the index page of your own website.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:42:45]:

And when it comes to you expressing what your product or service is going to do for the other person, the other party, are you describing it in terms of what they stand to gain from having your product or service? As in, you’re going to save money, you’re going to get there faster, it’s good for the environment, it’s good for your children, right? These are all gains. Gaining language. While psychology teaches us that people are easily twice more motivated by the potential of losing something than gaining that exact same thing. So instead of using gain language, we should start to use the avoidance of loss. What don’t they get if they don’t get your product or service? Right? Without this, you’re going to lose more money, you’re going to take longer to get there, you’re going to lose competitive advantage. Right now we’re talking about what we tend to lose. And you’ll find that people will be, you know, far more take that message to heart. So that’s a bit of a quick rundown of the seven principles.

Stuart Webb [00:44:03]:

Patrick, you’ve been so generous with that and I can think of, well, if people haven’t already started rewriting their website, they should do. Patrick, thank you so much for being so generous with that. I really appreciate everything you’ve just said. I had not come across that last principle and many of the others I had heard, but the last one I really thought suddenly, hey, that is a real power tip. So I’m really grateful. If nobody takes anything else away from here, the fact that we should be talking about loss, I mean, it is often something that I do talk to people about, which is in your proposals. Say, what is the risk of not going with this proposal by just say, for instance, making no decision. But making no decision means you are losing time or you are losing the potential to actually make a difference.

Stuart Webb [00:44:52]:

So that is a huge new one that I’m going to be building into my own, my own persuasiveness now. Thank you so much for being so generous and for spending this much time with us. Look, I’m just going to say once again, go, go and find, go and find the, the vault. There’s some great stuff in there from, from Patrick that systemizes. That’s S y s T M I S E me free hyphen stuff. And if you don’t mind, I send out an email once a week with, with brilliant guests like Patrick who are coming onto the show so that you can dial into the absolutely brilliant training. This is, this is, this is real business training you’re getting. So go to Systemize me, subscribe, fill out that form you, you will get for that one gift to me of an email address, an invite to come and spend time with people like Patrick and knowledge of this sort of thing that Patrick giving away and trying to help you do things.

Stuart Webb [00:45:51]:

Patrick, thank you so much for being with us today and spending so long explaining that I cannot thank you enough for giving us so much of your time. And I really want to say you have persuaded me to go and do something today and give back more than I’m giving at the moment. So thank you for that. Wonderful.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:46:09]:

That’s great. It was great to be here. And yeah, if people want to know more, they can of course Visit my website, ethicalpersuasion.com and I’ve also started my own podcast channel, Ethical Persuasion Unlocked. And so if you want more of what you’ve heard today, then it’s also a great place to start. But please remember that to develop application skills and confidence, you are going to have to do and your team some formal training. You’re not going to get that from just watching videos and listening to podcasts.

Stuart Webb [00:46:39]:

Both of those resources are in the vault. So please, if you didn’t get those things, go to the vault. You’ll find them there. Patrick, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it and I look forward to going and practicing more of this stuff myself.

Patrick Van der Burght [00:46:53]:

Wonderful.

Who is Anna?

Anna is a psychologist who specializes in helping individuals and organizations navigate the often invisible, yet crucial, “unwritten rules” of work. Anna works particularly with neurodivergent individuals and has a deep background in exploring class culture clashes within the workplace—especially the challenges faced when employees transition from blue-collar roles into corporate environments. Her upcoming book tackles these unwritten rules head-on, offering practical advice for leaders, staff, and HR professionals on how to recognise and address the subtle dynamics that impact team engagement, employee retention, and overall organisational success. Get ready for a conversation packed with actionable insights and straight-talking advice from someone who’s dedicated her career to demystifying what really makes teams tick behind the scenes

Key Takeaways

* If your best performers hit a wall after their promotion, look out for unwritten rules holding them back. Culture clashes are real, and naming them is the first step to fixing your team.

* Every workplace has unwritten rules—norms no one talks about that trip up even the best people. When these rules go unspoken, they can kill engagement and stall change.

* Do you ever promote a top worker, only to see them struggle? The issue might not be skill, but hidden cultural expectations. It’s time to get clear on what success really looks like.

* What does your “ideal employee” look like in your mind? Dig deep—sometimes our assumptions create noise, not results. Get intentional about measuring what actually matters.

* Before jumping into AI or new strategies, solve the unseen people problems first. Automation just speeds up whatever’s broken—fix your foundation before you build.

Don’t forget: If you want to connect, ask questions, or get notified about upcoming guests like Anna, subscribe to the Systemise.Me newsletter here. You only need your first name and email—easy as (coffee) pie!

Thanks for sharing a cup with us this week. Here’s to strong coffee, smart hiring, and believing in the dreams you’re just starting to imagine.

And don’t forget: keep an eye out for next guest. To submit your own questions, subscribe to our newsletter and join the conversation!

P.S. Loved this episode? Hit reply and let us know what resonated most

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Transcript

Note, this was transcribed using transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

unwritten rules of work, employee engagement, employee retention, promotion pipeline issues, blue collar workers, white collar workers, management training, cultural norms, organizational culture, class culture clash, communication skills, indirect communication, assertiveness, workplace professionalism, neurodivergence, unconscious bias, productivity issues, team performance, leadership recommendations, HR practices, workplace audits, work miscommunication, onboarding, context performance, task performance, workplace diversity, automation, AI in the workplace, organizational change, workplace compliance

SPEAKER

Anna Kallschmidt, Stuart Webb

Stuart Webb [00:00:31]:

Hi and welcome back to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee I have with me. Well, it’s not coffee actually at the moment, this is a tea. But I’m here with Dr. Anna Kauchmid. Hello Anna. Hope you’re got a coffee or something with you to refresh you during this brilliant stuff. Anna is a psychologist.

Stuart Webb [00:00:52]:

She works particularly with people who know neurodivergent, etc, talking about the unwritten rules of work. And I know you’ve got a book coming out soon, Anna, which I hope we can get into. So welcome to It’s Not Rocket Science. Five questions over coffee. And I hope that you are going to be able to tell us about the very unwritten rules there are around work.

Stuart Webb [00:01:14]:

Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I love the title of the podcast because I do think that internally a lot, this isn’t rocket science. We don’t need to, we don’t need to make it more complicated than it is.

Stuart Webb [00:01:25]:

No, we don’t. No we don’t. And there is, there is too much already of people trying to make things sound complicated. And I do say often, you know, if, if it’s too, if it’s too complicated for me to understand, it’s already got too complicated and you don’t have to get too complicated for me to lose it. So let’s talk about you and your work. Let’s talk about the sort of the people that you’re trying to help. What’s the, what how would you characterize and what, what, how do they, what is it that they notice about themselves? Or are they business owners that need the help for their employees?

Stuart Webb [00:02:00]:

Yeah. So since I look at the unwritten rules of work, which are the cultural norms that are so ingrained in your organization that people don’t think they need to be transparent about what they are. So it’s really about. There’s a cultural problem which impacts so many things. So I’m going to tell you the signs that my clients notice when they come to me, but at the core of them is being not in denial. That’s my ideal client, someone who’s not in denial. Someone who’s recognized that there’s an issue and wants to move forward.

Stuart Webb [00:02:32]:

And for those of us who aren’t yet even aware of the problem, what’s the problem? What are the things they’re noticing so that, so maybe there are people out there that haven’t even yet got to.

Stuart Webb [00:02:40]:

That stage so it can be low. Employee engagement is always one very poor retention. You’re having Problems promoting have. You have like great employees. This is a big one. I see you have great employees from like entry level to like almost middle management. But once they get into like the higher corporate levels, it’s like they fall apart or they just don’t get it. So I see this a lot specifically in industries that have like a blue collar, white collar, two different subsets, so like retail or anything in manufacturing etc.

Stuart Webb [00:03:17]:

Of where you have like these excellent blue collar workers. You promote them up to the corporate side and they’re like, what is going on? Because he introduced me as neurodivergent, which is true, but originally my work is about class and there’s a class culture clash there. And so it’s when you have a really good performer who as they get higher they run into more problems. And when you see this, so you have promotion pipeline issues, you have retention issues, you might have productivity issues and you might have complaints about your management at the management level after you’ve promoted them. And you’re not sure why because they were always great performers and you know, they work really hard.

Stuart Webb [00:03:54]:

So tell me, you know the people that you’re talking about there, the managers, the business owners, the founders of those companies, what are the things they’ve done? They, presumably they’ve gone through the sort of, they’ve gone through the usual training, they’ve tried to sort of train their managers in better communication, all that sort of thing. What do they normally find that, that they haven’t done, that they haven’t understood what their problem is.

Stuart Webb [00:04:16]:

A lot of us, and this is normal human nature, a lot of us have a hard time conceptualizing that our normal isn’t. Everyone’s normal. And it’s one of those. That sounds simple, that’s not rocket science, but that’s so deeply ingrained that a lot of companies spend a lot of money trying to add more things to solve the problem, have this training, have that speaker come in, etc. But they don’t look at what the core issues are. And it’s just assumed that it’s very, it’s just professionalism. And that people get bristled when you say that because like, well, that’s just being respectful. That’s not all the professionalism is.

Stuart Webb [00:04:59]:

Right, it’s very easy to dismiss and be like, this is just how things are done. This is just white collar work, this is just professionalism. But it’s things like indirect communication. It’s things like they don’t know how to schmooze enough, they’re rubbing People wrong, they seem rough around the edges or that they either don’t know how to be assertive enough or they come across as aggressive. And it’s those little nuances that are more common in blue collar and pink collar work of being more direct in your communication, of talking more about task and less about interpersonal skills. And then it changes when it gets to the corporate level. And so bringing in somebody to talk about unconscious bias can be great for other reasons, but it’s not going to solve those culture clashes.

Stuart Webb [00:05:47]:

Okay. Okay. So you must have some great advice that you can give to people to take them into that first step. And I know we’re going to get into some of the stuff that you offer us in terms of sort of. If you go to the vault that we have here, which is the systemized me free stuff vault, we’ve got got stuff from, from Anna which you can sort of grab but talk us through sort of. What is the advice that you give to companies when they first come to you? The sort of thing that you’re telling them they need to start this process before they get an expert like you involved.

Stuart Webb [00:06:20]:

So I do it on. I will do an unwritten rules audit for where I look at water. I have eight groups of unwritten rules and I can survey that and tell you which ones you’re struggling with. But I have a very quick free version on my website drkaulschmidt.com quiz and it’s about four questions. Once you tell me if you’re looking for yourself, your organization, and that’ll let me know which one you’re struggling with the most. Are you struggling with people? Don’t tell you about problems until it’s too late. Are you struggling with people? There’s a lot of miscommunications and it’s delaying productivity. Are you struggling with.

Stuart Webb [00:06:54]:

You have a team of really top performers, but they do not know how to work together. And that helps me narrow down which culture clash might be an issue. And then I can make recommendations for your organization so that that is the quickest free option. But I do have, like I said, a book coming out in the next couple of weeks and that has every chapter covers an unwritten rule and at the end of every chapter I give recommendations for leaders, staff and hr. And those are very practical, hands on. I don’t do the vague advice thing, if you haven’t noticed. I’m like. The first thing I said was like, well, you have to not be in denial.

Stuart Webb [00:07:34]:

Right. So it’s a very, it’s A very. I’ve been told I’m not a B12 shot speaker. I’m not going to make you feel great and then walk away and you’re like, what are we doing? So it’s very. The book is over 300 pages for a reason. It’s very tangible, hands on.

Stuart Webb [00:07:51]:

And that’s a really good recommendation for anybody who’s here at the moment for actual practical advice. And that’s the stuff we love to give on this podcast. Because I don’t know about you and comment in the below. If you’re beginning to see things in what you’re being told now, are you seeing things in your work, where you’re going, I think I’ve got one of these. And I know Anna or myself will come back to you and sort of direct you in the right direction to start getting that help. Because we all need to start being direct with people. We need to start getting that sort of action that Anna’s talking about now. We need to, to be able to move things forward.

Stuart Webb [00:08:28]:

So, yeah, do comment below on things that you might have seen in your workplace and let us know whether or not this is resonating. Anna, you were saying you were direct. How did you come to be this expert in these unwritten rules, the things that we don’t see? How did you manage to sort of find them? And how did you find them, work them out?

Stuart Webb [00:08:51]:

Well, I like to do well. The short answer is I screwed up enough that I had to figure it out. You know, I pissed off people. Okay, yeah, I can see that deep dive on this. But I would say, I’d say the moment that it started coming together for me was in my first week of my PhD program. We have this class, Introduction to Industrial Psychology, where we’re going over. I’m the type of psychologist, nobody knows who we are, so we’re going over like, you know, job performance, how to design metrics, how to design jobs, how to do a job analysis, all of those tangible things. And we learned first week there are two types of job performance.

Stuart Webb [00:09:25]:

Does that sound right to you, that there are two types? No, that’s not so it fascinated me as well. And so the first type is task performance, which is what is in your job description. And the other kind is contextual performance. And it was all of those other things that help organizations, but that aren’t written down. And I was like, so what are all those other things? And the room just went silent and everybody was like, well, you know, I was like, no, no, I wouldn’t have.

Stuart Webb [00:09:57]:

Asked the question if I knew and.

Stuart Webb [00:09:59]:

I was coming in. I didn’t go straight from undergrad to grad. I worked since high school and I worked in between grad. So I had work experience. And I was like, what is this? And I was already doing a research my master’s thesis was on. Is a low income background stigmatized at work even after you’ve experienced social class mobility and even for white men in America? And so I was already in that vein of looking at class. And so when nobody could tell me what all those other things were. And IO psychology is so big on measurement.

Stuart Webb [00:10:32]:

Like, we’re so big on what gets measured, you know, matters and drives performance. So it was just weird to me that there was this whole second piece of performance that we weren’t being really clear about. And so that’s what I ended up doing my dissertation on was what are the unwritten rules of work for people who move up from a low income background to middle class or higher through employment? And So I interviewed 64 people and noticed themes and what they were saying. I talked to black and white women and men in the United States. And then over time, my next study, I made a scale and I administered it to all races and genders in the US And I looked at statistically significant differences. And so it’s just kind of evolved from that moment of being like, what’s all that other stuff?

Stuart Webb [00:11:22]:

And so is that effectively the book? Is that what you’ve now put into the book so that you can really, well, at this stage categorize what those unreal written rules are so that now there is an answer to the question, what are the unwritten rul rules?

Stuart Webb [00:11:40]:

Yeah, that’s the book. So I did the dissertation and I didn’t plan on becoming like the unwritten rules coach, but I. I have largely been outside of academia. Like I’ve done, you know, I’ve kept a research hold and I sometimes teach, but largely I’ve worked for the federal government or private consulting firms and worked in organizations. And everywhere I worked, the unwritten rules were a problem. Like, no matter what, if you go in and you’re trying to implement a change and nobody knows what you’re talking about when they don’t know how to talk to each other, it’s not going to work. And so it just kept on becoming this pattern of noticing that it’s like putting a band aid on a broken bone, right? We’re not addressing the broken bone. And so, yeah, I just kept researching it.

Stuart Webb [00:12:25]:

And then in the book I talk about I spent a chapter on the research on each of them. I spinach. I talk about my personal experiences with organizations, and I also talk about case studies of where we can see these rules play out in other organizations as well.

Stuart Webb [00:12:41]:

That’s fascinating. And, you know, I mean, that, that strikes me that it’s not just small business owners who are currently struggling with their teams, which are perhaps not quite as functioning as the way you. They would like them to be, who are listening to this and thinking, that might be me. But it’s those organizations that are trying to undergo big change. And I’ve been involved with. And you are absolutely right that when you try and make a change, even if it is for the better, nobody wants to adopt that change. And it’s largely down to a bunch of things that you cannot tangibly put your finger on and go, we need to address this. And it’s those unwritten rules which actually prevent and cause those transformations to often go very badly wrong, become very expensive, and be very expensive to fix.

Stuart Webb [00:13:29]:

So this doesn’t change a large number of people. Yeah, that’s exactly right. AI is actually making problem almost worse.

Stuart Webb [00:13:36]:

Yeah. Because it’s ample. AI amplifies and automates the good and the bad. And then I’m sure you’ve heard of the MIT study that came out a few months ago that was like 95% of AI actually isn’t increasing profits at all. Did you see that?

Stuart Webb [00:13:49]:

I did.

Stuart Webb [00:13:50]:

Okay, so what I found interesting. So one of my unwritten rules is the unwritten rule of compliance, which is that people might ask you for your opinion, but they’re not really asking for your opinion. Right. You’re supposed to just agree. And one of the examples that the MIT report gave was that there was this huge flop. And of course, they don’t name the organization. That one person, one leader made this global rollout, just him and AI, no feedback. Nobody else looked at it.

Stuart Webb [00:14:22]:

And guess what? It didn’t go well. Isn’t that shocking? And that to me, that’s an example of you automated. The unwritten rule of compliance.

Stuart Webb [00:14:32]:

Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Webb [00:14:32]:

Because AI is only going to disagree with you if you tell it to. Otherwise it’s like, yeah, you go, girl. You are so smart. Like, hello. Right. And you have to tell it. Don’t hallucinate. What are the holes here? And even then, you still have to think for yourself.

Stuart Webb [00:14:50]:

So to me, that was an example of. I wasn’t even looking for it. I was just reading the report. I found it interesting because I’m not anti AI. I’m just anti being stupid with AI. And I saw that example and I was like, well, there you go. There’s an unwritten rule on automation.

Stuart Webb [00:15:06]:

I must admit that that’s one I shall now start to quote more often. I do often get involved in companies that are trying to improve productivity with AI. And the one thing that I often say about automation, and I did automation for a number of years, I built a couple of companies around automation. And the one thing that I was always taught and always said to customers as they started their automation product, please let’s start by sor out the problems because otherwise your automation will just make your bad stuff flow faster and you cannot then control it. If your bad process is now fast, you don’t even understand where the bad stuff’s coming from because it would come at you so quickly. Too many companies I don’t believe are looking at these sort of unwritten rules, looking at the underlying problems first, resolving those. So they’ve got a foundation for growth and a foundation for building those, those, those, those glorious temples of, of sc. And I’m not going to try and keep you here all afternoon.

Stuart Webb [00:16:06]:

I’m sure we could have a very, very long conversation and it would be great fun. But people want to get, want to get to the nub of things. And one of those things that I think is really important is there must be a question at the moment that you’re thinking he hasn’t asked me the killer question, the one question that will really break this topic open. So I’m going to ask you to tell me what that question is because I obviously don’t know it and I haven’t asked it. But then you’re obviously going to have to answer it for me because that is the key to getting this topic embedded in everybody’s workplace.

Stuart Webb [00:16:42]:

You know, I have not the only question you sent me that I could not answer. But I what it reminded me of is that something, an exercise that I do with some of my clients is I’ll ask them to picture their ideal employee and I’ll ask them what are they doing?

Stuart Webb [00:17:01]:

Good question for them.

Stuart Webb [00:17:03]:

And I’ll ask them what are they doing? Okay, what does this look like? And it’s a helpful because you know, you should already be doing this because why are you measuring job performance if you can’t tell me this? Right? So we’re having this conversation. It’ll be like this person is a great communicator. This person is a great team player. This person, you know, tries to solve problems first and then they Come to me Da da da da. And then at the end I asked them, and what background did you assign that person? Because inherently, what race did you assign that person? What gender did you assign that person? How old were they? There’s all these things that we don’t realize. Color, who we foresee. And it’s both important to know who your ideal employee is so that you can make sure you’re measuring job performance. That is needed.

Stuart Webb [00:17:48]:

And it’s important to also recognize the noise because too often, and we all do this, we all, like, I think white women with a Southern American accent sound brilliant, right? But that’s because they sound like me, you know, and so, like, we all do that. And so it’s important to recognize that we all have noise. And, and that is a really critical takeaway in my book is one of the main recommendations is we all need to have frame of reference training. And that’s going to be the next rollout. In my workshops that I do in my online school community is focusing on how do we narrow down the noise because it may make us feel good short term, but then we run into all those problems that we talked about in the beginning of the. Why are the people I’m promoting not meeting expectations? Why do we have low engagement? Why am I spending so much in turnover? What’s going on? Why is my AI not working? Right? All of these things.

Stuart Webb [00:18:55]:

Yeah. Yeah, Brilliant. Anna, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. You know, what you say is so critical to people who are trying to grow their businesses, who are trying to sort of get work done more profitably, get it done productively. They’re ignoring, they’re often ignoring, you know, they’ve got the task, they’re ignoring the other stuff. And that’s the thing that often slows you down. So I think you’re, you. You’ve got a, you’ve got a great way of putting it.

Stuart Webb [00:19:25]:

I love the way you’re putting it. I really hope that if anybody here is, is thinking, I, I know that’s me. Please drop comments down in the chat below. We will get back to you. We will point you in the right direction because I think this is a great way of doing it. The other thing I’m going to ask you all to do now is this link, which is www.systemize.me forward/subscribe. That’s systemize.me forward/subscribe. It’s a simple form.

Stuart Webb [00:19:53]:

It just asks you for your name and an email address. You will then get onto the website, the mailing lists, apologies, the mailing list for this, for the show. You’ll get an email once a week from me telling you who’s coming up. And you can come and look on LinkedIn and join the join the call so that you can get your questions answered. But in the meantime, Dr. Anna Carlschmidt, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us. Really appreciate you coming and explaining some of those unwritten rules. I’m now going to have an unwritten rule, which is I need to have a drink immediately after this.

Stuart Webb [00:20:23]:

So thank you very much for your time. And I look forward to seeing, seeing more of what you are producing as you do the second version of all of this.

Stuart Webb [00:20:31]:

All right. Thank you so much. Have a good one.