How Might We...?

In this episode, we ask a simple question with complex answers: how do you build trust across borders, cultures, and systems?

Scott is joined by three voices with lived, global experience. Fahd shares how his teams serve families across Pakistan and the diaspora, and why trust is the real product when support is delivered from afar. Douglas reflects on leading across regions and why celebrating what is right with the world changes how we partner. Geoff brings two decades on global boards, arguing that trust starts with how we listen, engage, and follow through.

Together they cover:

Culture, context, and why “one message fits all” fails.

Media noise, facts, and the human habit of de-humanising “the other.”

Practical habits that travel well: clear expectations, empathy, openness, and delivery.

Ideas like Ubuntu, and why being there for each other builds credibility over time.

The role of data and technology, and why human experience still decides outcomes.

If you lead teams, sell across markets, or simply want to work well with people who are not like you, this conversation will help. Listen in for practical ways to earn trust—one interaction at a time.

Geoff Linkedin Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffsearle/

Douglas Linkedin Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaslines/

Fahd Linkedin Profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahd-khan-406bb835/

Transcript - Generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate 

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of How Might We, and this time we're talking about how might we build trust internationally and at the time we are. I think that's a very interesting subject. And with me on this podcast is one of my regular guest, Jeff, another Douglas, who's been on many times and for the first time, and welcome is Fard.

Welcome to the podcast gentlemen who would like to introduce themselves first. I think Fard should introduce himself first. Okay, there we go, please, Fard. Alright, so thank you for having me, onto the podcast. my name is Fahard and I'm the CEO of, two companies. One is, Mosen and the other is Moja.

Moha is a private 9 1 1 service, or a private 9, 9, 9 service. in third world countries you typically don't have. very efficient systems, that work. So I have to make a private 9, 9 9, solution for the people of Pakistan in and through this company, we've, helped save more than 15,000 lives and, handle more than 55,000 events, globally.

The other company is Mosin Mosin, is, very relevant to the topic today because, Mosin is all about helping, expat and overseas Pakistanis look after their families back home and making sure that they're looked after safe, provided for and everything. The typical challenge that we're trying to address is, establishing trust with the people who are sitting outside of Pakistan.

They're looking for a service provider who basically look after their families like a surrogate child. So, you can imagine nobody wants to stand in unless they can trust them. So, it's very relevant to the topic today. Okay. Thank you very much and welcome. So, Douglas, do you wanna go next?

Thank you, Scott, and it's, wonderful to, to see everybody again and far just amazing, , what you're doing in that region.

And looking forward to having a conversation together today. And thank you, Scott, for including me. I said my name is Douglas Lyons. I'm a co-founder and director of IBM Group Limited based in London, and, have been so for a number of years. And Jeff and I are business partners and good friends.

As, yourself, Scott and Fahd. So I think this is a collection of amazing people, but amazing friends, with these real trusts. So really looking forward to wonderful conversation from all the perspectives this afternoon. Okay, thank you very much. And last but not least, Jeffrey. Thank you young man.

 Geoff Hudson Sill, independent non-executive director for the last 20 years on, global technology companies. senior executive, C-suite executive on both publicly listed and privately listed companies. author of seven books, regular thought leader and also, co-founder and and director with Douglas, as I said on on IBM group and group of companies.

Okay. Welcome gentlemen. we're gonna talk today about how, how do we or how might we build trust internationally, which I think with the way that's [going on, especially geopolitically, and trade wise is quite an interesting topic. And, as far as you said, even in business, how do we build trust internationally that, especially the business you are doing with.

Looking after people for expats or people abroad, and they're trusting you to deliver services and things from them, from afar, from a distance. I think, I think one of the things that we, we, so trust is a very expansive, very overreaching sort of word, but it is so fundamental in nature. It starts, from almost childbirth, where, where a child is, is, brought into the world and, he grows up in the cradle in the arms of people that he grows up trusting.

And, and when you look at children for the first four or five years of their lives, they're very trusting people. And somehow along the way. the world, sort of starts taking that away. It starts chipping away at, at all of those things. And I think one of the major things that we would wanna discuss, today is how do we raise a whole society and then, through that, create,  a system where trust can be established along all lines so that when it, when, when a child or a person finally reaches into the business realm or into, into adult life, their people, who other people can actually trust.

Interesting. I'd like the concept you said about as, as a child we basically trust and it's nearly unconditional in the amount we trust our children. or sorry, our children trust, us as parents and we trust our parents or guardians and say the experience that we have erodes that level of trust We have.

As, as human beings. Doug, what do you think? I guess it depends also how you are brought up., everyone has a different story in that regard. So trust can be broken at a very young age. Trust can be broken at a teenager level, or even, even at an adult level, right, when you think about it.

So you are engaging in different experiences, in your life journey, if you think about that. Yep. Doug, I think when you start talking about this, like to. Talk about things from a different perspective. And, you'll remember the mid nineties in business where, in England particularly you would have the queen's, expert export award for companies that were looking to export their products and services globally and internationally.

And it, there were very few companies really doing that very well. I remember working for a company that did it well, continually won this award, but it was an unusual one because it was a case of there in in England there were a lot of companies that were afraid to do international business. was never afraid of that.

And always looked to take our products and services, across country, across culture, and across boundary. When it was a very primitive thing to do, you know, we've just won a contract in United States, or we've just won a contract in Africa. We've just won a new contract in Malaysia or Japan or in China.

The, in the nineties, that wasn't really happening. And then things started to evolve. I mean, I've worked in 121 countries around the world, successfully in my career to date. enjoyed it. But what was the fascination for me was that I am English and I had the ability to be able to go cross border, cross culture.

And what you understand, even at that level in the mid nineties, was you were not going to succeed with that unless you built collaboration, unless you built trust. We are failing on those points. And if you look at, we've talked about this before, Scott, but if you think about what is the process of trust starts with effective listening.

Doug and I, you know, we do a lot around empathy mapping. We do a lot around, why you need to have, what creates a curious mind, but more importantly, what is compassion? And then when you start leading compassion, you start bringing into understanding. And then you start moving into communication, which then obviously builds outcome, which builds purpose and trust.

Now, if you start looking at what creates the curious mind, you can have as many curious minds as you want, but unless you have the ability to engage, and right now I would say we're at the worst point in the world's history for the ability to engage. Productivity issues have never been so disastrous than what they are today.

8.8 trillion at the last count with a Gallup report, which is about 11% of GDP, which is more than Amazon, apple, and Google's turnover all put together. Houston, do we have a problem? I think we have no old jokes aside, and I know Douglas has got some very strong points that he'd like to add to this, but I do think that if we look at what we were doing in the nineties, and I think it was our famous Winston Churchill.

And it was I must add this. walked into, a meeting and, they said, one of the persons said, do we have a conclusion yet on the war? And he said, well, I don't think it's gonna last more than five days. Why do you say that? Well, we've only got five bottles of RA on the side. And that would say to me that Winston wants a conclusion in five days.

And I would say right now we need a conclusion. When it comes to war, we've got massive problems. Geopolitically war is not helping trust, it's actually fragmenting our relationships, international relationships, our ability to actually communicate with others because everything is so transactional.

And you know, and I know that transactions transactional. Relationships have a very short lifespan when it comes to longevity. Anyway, I've said enough. I wanna open up now, Douglas. Mm, thank you Jeff. I was deeply reflecting on, both your comments and files as you were talking there. And I other night I was talking to,

To Monique, my wife, and we were just talking about, when we were growing up as kids, if we wanted to get something in terms of information, we would've to wait a week or two in the postman or something like that. But, we'd look at the instant nature of the way the world communicates and, we arepresident can, tweet on his own personal social media site, instantaneously before the news gets to it.

It's, it's just unbelievable. And I think it brought me back to an experience I had many years ago when I was blessed to spend some time with a, a world famous National Geographic photographer. And he had a simple philosophy in life and he said, we, we tend to focus and we look at the, the world around us and the media.

Tends to focus on very negative things. But, but he said when he took photographs and he would look at a particular picture at a distance, you saw one thing, but when you went closer, you saw something totally different. And it's to celebrate what is right with the world. and unfortunately we are in a pervasive environment where we celebrate what's wrong with the world, predominantly.

And so it tends

to be sensationalism. It tends to sell, links, clicks, ad advertising online, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that's something that's. We look at, trust internationally, and it's those things that we need to be better at celebrating what's right with the world because there is a lot more good.

And I think there's a lot more good than there is bad. We just tend to overemphasize the bad. and it tends to have a voice that's much bigger than it should be. And it's how do business leaders, how do communities start to celebrate what is right with the, the world? and I think that can have a big impact on a number of things.

And, and I think coming back to FO's point is that as we, we grow up and we indoctrinate ourself in a certain way of life and we get shaped, we lose inhibition around free thinking and natural thinking because we start to be educated in a certain way and influenced in a certain way. And I think it's.

These are the types of things that, again, when we look at the role of leaders in communities and business circles, how we can make a difference is to actually start celebrating what is right with the world, what is right with doing amazing collaboration deals across borders knowing that some of these borders are complex as well.

So, just some, some thoughts from my side. I think what Douglas has just said is phenomenal. I really agree with the fact that, unfortunately, news of bad events, the type of stuff that you see the most traction for, and I've seen that happen. So, I've seen the advent of media,

From one TV channel back in the nineties to, having a full spectrum of TV channels and then having the internet boom come in into Pakistan where you have the lowest data packages. I've seen how it's eroded trust in society where, last year, 1.6 million, the record, 1.6 million people have tried to leave the country.

And, it's not, it's not, if you look at the statistics on the ground, yes, crime has picked up, but it's no different from the crime. statistics that you see in the UK for London. it's, it's no different from the crime that you see in, in New York or any of these other places. the grass is not really greener anywhere.

It's  not, the weather might be different. The weather might be more pleasant for you guys. This summer is nice for us the winter is, is something that we really look forward to. but when you look at it, brick for brick, word for word for pound, for pound, I think life everywhere has, has gone south.

And, and, Jeff made a very powerful point that, and, and I know Jeff, having been a friend of his for, it's been a privilege to be a friend of his for the past, at least 15 years now. He's always had  he's been very, very, his tolerance for risk has been very, very high.

The perceived risk has been very high he was one of the first people to come to Pakistan when Pakistan was going into an economic boom. he brought this entire team over. And one, one interesting thing that I was thinking about when, when, Jeff started speaking. So, Pakistanis have, have, like people in the subcontinent, uh, or even in the Middle East, have a very large ability to trust foreigners.

You look at any vlogger coming to Pakistan, and you'll see that the amount of hospitality that they receive is just through the roof, right? Because for some odd reason, it's, it's like we will, trust. What, what a foreigner says, especially if, if there's a little bit of a colonial, history there.

But, we, we take, take them as experts. but it's very surprising to think, that trust is a major factor for a lot of UK firms to push their business, back into these markets where, where it should be happening. it's, it's, it, it shouldn't, it shouldn't evoke conversations on trust.

Yes, it should evoke a lot of other conversations, a lot of compliant compliance and regulatory conversations. But as a Pakistani sitting in Pakistan, I've always seen that anybody coming in, who's a foreigner, Jeff, you've been here, you've seen them out of hospitality that you received in Pakistan, right?

I personally feel that the world, as connected as it has gotten to be, it has gotten very fragmented in the process. And I think the basic thing has been what Douglas said, focusing on the negatives. Well, yeah, I think so. I think you're right about, the Pakistan. I mean, look, I was very honoured to be in Pakistan at a, at a particularly interesting time of its development.

But you also remember, it wasn't just the hospitality. It was the protection that you provided for me, armed guards and four by fours and safe houses, et cetera, was, was very high, as were some of the risks. So you have to weigh that in. But also I'd say that yet from a culture perspective in the Middle East, particularly in, we're seeing it now in UAE and I'm spending quite a bit of time out there at the moment, is that, they like international knowledge, international intellect.

They want to employ international people. Funny enough I was with a very large law firm in London, recently discussing that all her clients that were racing over to Dubai to set up a business and operate out of Dubai, and now they're racing back to London. and I think can only think that people don't recognize and they need to recognize, and I think trust is a big part of this.

And I'll come back to that shortly, but culture in an environment has to be understood and you have to integrate yourself. Dubai as an example, is not an extension of London. It's Dubai, UAE. Yes, it has an international metropolis of culture, speaking expat communities, people wanting to do business, but it's still the UAE and the Middle East.

It is not London. And I think a lot of English companies have, have made that mistake. I think when it comes to trust, it's a difficult word, broadly speaking, you have to be careful as well. certain labels attached to this, the trust modelling is that, we want to rebuild trust in business.

Is is certain something that I'm seeing more of now, rather than we need to build a trust because they're feeling, don't you trust me? that we've gotta be very careful that trust is an output of cognitive behavior. But really where I look at this is it's a, it's a series of intelligences that we all possess, and it's the umbrella that encapsulates all of those.

Now, when I start talking about those intelligences, I start talking [about IQ intelligence, ] emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence for a better word, values-based intelligence, if you, if you want to call it that. Wisdom, intelligence and trust has to be the umbrella that we all carry in order us, because it's not just, your presence.

It's the way you speak. It's how you communicate. You could question how we were communicating before if you weren't, or we weren't prepared to actually listen to people meaningfully with depth. When I meet people now, it's not just a conversation. It's absolute transparency and openness and depth that we go to gives me trusted recognition straight away.

When you are only speaking at a very thin layer of discussion, you realize you've got to earn your respect and earn your respect. Now fi finally, that doesn't necessarily come from the different generations, [so the older generation understands that very well. The younger generation isn't interested. It's not like, now I want it.

Now. They don't understand that how you build. Trust and how, how that's, and more importantly, what is the importance of that? As an example, you can go for a walk in a park. It's an analogy, basic analogy. And you can walk past 'em and say, good morning, sir. Good morning madam. And  you have a lovely dog go through to a younger person.

Generally the facial expressions will be head down, headphones on, potentially, and not even interested. They were not interested in basic forms of etiquette. But you and I know that basic forms of etiquette builds a much bigger common language when it comes to culture and understanding. It's interesting and we talk about this, we started, we touched on something like the culture and said when people come over and the respects that is, the foreigners who come over, I give them, one of the best things I've heard somebody say about trust is, trust is how people experience you.

And I think if we're gonna build it internationally. Across borders is how do we project as a business or as a country, what are we projecting? And then how does, how do people experience that projection? 'cause that will influence their perception of us as a collective or as an individual. And then that's how will influence how they will respond to us.

so I think we've gotta be really mindful internationally. And it comes back to what you're saying, Doug, Jeff, sorry about the UAE and Dubai and I've spent a lot of time in and around the GCC area and every part of the GCC has its own identity. It's a bit like thinking, oh, it's all the same 'cause it's GCC, it's all the same.

'cause it's the Arab world, wherever, well, it not, Europe's not all the same. Mm-hmm. Every in. Europe has its own identity in his own way. Yes, if we can talk about that, Scott,  Doug wants. You know, that was the toughest job I ever had. I worked internationally across four or five continents for many years.

But when I took a C-suite role, in Europe, I ran 28 countries, middle East and Africa, and it was the toughest job I ever had. Integrating that and having that interconnectedness between all the countries and the office and their regions, right. Toughest job, however. We got there and we, we made it hugely successful.

But it was, it was the toughest job I had. But without the empathy, compassion, understanding of the country, the, the regional aspects, the nuances. Okay, An example of that would be we had to, we had to have different messaging for different countries in the local language, which went to the target minds of the people for the very first time and suddenly started to build credibility from that, right?

And we started to really make great headway. But it was tough. And I think, I go back to culture and, where do we look? Where do we look for trust around us? Polski, we had 80 plus elections last year, 80 plus. Massive shift in movement. All of the politicians say, I want you to trust me. But when we look at that, we would always look to government.

Trust on how we behave or even not trust, maybe respect on how we behave. Businesses are I don't trust, there's, there's a lack of trust in government, which  means that businesses have to create their own miniature cultures. for the youngsters they might look to ambassadors. So football ambassadors and, and you, you've gotta look around you and say, even in the world of sport, there is an erosion of behavior, which for really brings back the issue, well, if they can do it, we can do it.

And government, if they can behave this way, we can behave this way. And this is a big problem. And as I said, we can band the word culture. But, and we can use that as the umbrella, but there's an awful lot of fixing demand. And even at home, even at home, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, connotation, wife, husband, when one person picks up a device, the other person's thinking, well, it's eight o'clock at night.

Who are you contacting? Who are you talking to? There is still a mistrust even at home. So in my view, there's an awful lot of fixing to be done. But it's not a task that's too big because it starts today. And what we do today matters because whatever we do today will affect tomorrow.

This conversation, can get very expansive, when Scott was speaking and then when Geoff, again, from a Pakistani perspective, we've, for us to trust a foreigner, especially a britisher is easier because we've grown up on the culture that was left behind.

when I started, reading, English, in Pakistan, the lingua franca is English, your chance at upward mobility greatly increases if you can verse better in English than any other language, even the local languages, So when I started read reading, I consumed Enid blighton.

You know, the children of today can consume, Harry Potter. you know, I grew up on we, Johns captain's Big Ellsworth and Charles Dickens and whatnot, right? So for us. There was a lot of subliminal level, acceptance, for doing this., there was a lot more acceptance for us, and I, always say this, like when you come to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, you will find that having been part of the colonies, there's, because Lord McLay and, all of his attempts to basically, introduce this new culture, where the English language was superior.

Like, there's a very small example, in our, in our language, the word jamar, is the word that you use for a janitor, which isn't really like a top end job anywhere in the world, right? In the olden days, like before, the British local where, Jamar was the person who used to do all of the accounting.

So, it was a complete cultural shift. And, we got independence from the British. the Indians got independence from the British, but if you look at the Middle East, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but if it was a Pakistani doctor or a, an Indian doctor or a Bangladeshi doctor, professional, they would get 15,000 Rials or 20,000 Rials

Whereas, a Britisher would start off at 80,000 rials. And the difference in the Middle East is, they didn't get independence from you. They got independence from the Turks through you. there's a lot of, subliminal trust in this market. But if you take this conversation down to a very basic element because, and Geoff, I'll,

I'll be very clear with you on this. You just spoke about the youth and, wearing headphones and everything. I think just one generation above us, we've done something very fundamentally wrong. we've somehow subliminally, put in a programming with the children that they're not to trust the world around them.

you know, we've, we've also at a very micro level done this, like I, I see it, a lot of the people that, that sign up for our services, like, I'll give you an example. I was taking my kid, my parents out for, for ice cream and coffee at at night and, that's hard. You're talking broadly. There's four of us on the call which says 25% of us on this call today don't have children.

I. Okay, s25% of the call, I, I understand, but I'm talking about a hundred percent of my customers. II'll give you that example where, so what are you asking these? And I, I'll, I'll add one more metaphor here, and that is, if you look,I had this conversation yesterday. If you actually look at, procreation of children globally, there are less children being conceived and coming into the world, not in Pakistan.

There's just, there globally, you take, if you take all the global stats, and I'm sure if I look at Africa, that's still booming too, right? And then I look, but if you look at where, if you look at, certain countries, the figures are down. Geoff, you're absolutely right, but if you want to look at the, the growth of population, you'll soon realize that Europe is going to be largely Muslim because Muslims are procreating at a different rate than what the natives are.

Right. at some point you're going to see a very, major river. like, I, I used to say, and I say this very often, there was a time, I was telling Scott this, that I spent about six months in Shrewbury. my father was doing, his basic helicopter course, instructor pilot course in, in Shrewbury, right?

And, there was a time in England where, you used to literally have to look for places for Curry and, and all of those back in 87, 88, right? And now, you know, recently when I was in, in the uk, I did not have to speak English curry. I, I had, I had curry, I had curry last night, and I'm in North America.

 Curry is the national dish of. Yeah, it has become so, hasn't it? I love curry. what I'm trying to say is, Jeff, that the world is changing in a way where in London, now, I don't need to speak in English because every shop that I go to, I can converse in order, and I jokingly say this to people, when the British left the subcontinent, they didn't think we'd follow them.

that's what happened. But the thing is, Jeff, how do we build a culture? how are you and I friends? We've been friends because, we've always had each other's back. let you remember. you will remember in 2010 when we drove through the Taliban village before Sunrise to go to that big oil refinery, and you said, I'm not going without you.

Mm You remember that and that, yeah. That's your statement. He said, you, I'm not leaving without you, was your words. Yeah. Yeah. And so what I'm really trying to say is if you take that as an output of behavior, mm-hmm. That builds trust and it builds credibility. If you look at the military, trust, respect, honor, these are big words.

These aren't just words. They are built on practices. If I say to Douglas, I'm going to make sure this happens. Douglas doesn't have to ask me twice, it's done because it's the trust that we have together, and Scott, so forth, everybody on this call. we have a phenomenal relationship that we know that, that even if they, something happens, that each and every person has done their utter best to do that because it's credible actions that build trust.

As the, you said earlier, the experience, the human experience is built about this incremental trust. Our trust model explains that in a lot more detail, but really what I'm trying to say to you is that human, the human experience needs to be about more. Interaction. More execution experiences, more experiences, and we lack human experiences.

My God, I can't wait to get off this thing, because I relish the ability to have human experience. I say to Doug sometimes, Doug, meet me in so and so. We're gonna have a day together and we are just going to sort everything out, And we do because it's human experience, not video experience.

Now, as I said before, the whole thing. That research proves that if we have a call like this today from a creativity point of view or an innovation point of view, we'll create something like [00:30:00] 6.47 ideas. But I actually, if I were it all together in a room, the creativity and innovation and idea exchange moves to something like 11.3.

Absolutely. Now, as far as I'm concerned, that is the difference between success and failure in my book. Especially when you're doing mission critical decisions, whether it's a business, whether it's a family issue, whether it's a taxation or government issue, these are the things that have to be considered and we're not spending enough time in the human experience.

I think I was about to say don't give. Yeah. No, no, no. I've been quite the, effecting our conversation now. Calculating. Thank you, Scott. But for me it's about action. And I wanna share a story. You know, being from South Africa originally, I, I was in the, the pre apartheid era, as a, as a young white South African at school.

And I wouldn't say I was privileged 'cause we came from a very humble background. And, and we, we lived a very humble life. But we, we also [00:31:00] lived in a sheltered life and a segregated life, which was absolutely wrong. And when we came out of apartheid, actually, the best thing that ever happened to me in my life was I actually went to a predominantly black university which was an absolute, two years before that would've been an absolute unacceptable thing.

But it was the best thing for me because it, it just changed my whole perspective on, on, on, on, on people and, people, white people, black people, Indian people. And to this day, one has, I've got wonderful friendships, but one of the most amazing things of my life and talking about leadership was one event that changed a country.

One event, one action, no words. One action changed a country in a in a minute, and that was the day when we came out of, we came out of apartheid and Nelson Mandela was chosen to be our president and. He walked out. And rugby, as you guys know, is one of our passions in South Africa. He came out with the, the Springbok jersey on, and in that moment he united 65 million people.

And I guarantee you, and it wasn't just in that moment when he was the ruling president of South Africa, it was truly a rainbow nation. It was a, a nation that was coming together. It was building amazing things that had mutual respect for each other. And it's certainly, even to this day, it's not a racist country at all.

Even though some think it is, it's absolutely not. People just wanna survive like we all do. For me, unfortunately, when toxic leadership takes over, then you see the unwinding of all that good work. And so I'm really fascinated about is the behavior of public officials, public policy versus private capital.

And there was an example where actually through a, a horrific regime, we, we brought a leader who actually aligned the, the, the, the, the public policy and, and private capital railed behind as one. And actually it was South Africa at that point was on an absolute amazing trajectory. and so for me, unfortunately it wasn't sustainable.

And, and, and hopefully it does get back there, but that's a great example of just. This alignment between, public, policy and private capital and how they can coexist. And I think what we are seeing now, and far touched on it, is this exacerbation and it's a mega trend, is mass migration of people or more torn areas, from, from areas.

And, and some are doing it legitimately, some aren't, but it is becoming a boiling point globally, rightfully or wrongfully are the press steering it up? They absolutely are. we, we've got, uh, a migrant concern issue now at the moment, and I was chatting to someone who's done a tremendous amount of work in the United Nations on this and saying, well, actually people don't realize the, the volumes were double this in the eighties and nineties.

So this has been around for a long time, but what is it? It's that, that voice in the corner of the media that tends to blow it out a proportion. And clearly there's certain agendas in that, but, but the other thing I want to touch on is. I think in all our careers and, and life experiences, I mean, we've been in tough corners together and so far, and Jeff, when you guys were in Pakistan in some tough situations, you had each other's back.

And that's what counts, that's what builds lifelong trust. And it's how do we bring that in business, in society and relationships with the younger generations to show them. Sometimes it's just those simple things of having each other's back and that's all that you count on. and that's what makes the difference.

So just some thoughts on my side on that. No, thank you very much. I like the, um, it, it's kind of as you've got your, I think it's Gottman's definition of trust, which is another one I like is basically, are you there for me at this moment? Mm-hmm. And so trust, trust is contextual and it does change 'cause you trust people in different ways.

And I think it goes back to what your point, Doug, about all the stuff that's in the papers and the, the, the, the information that you have. So I think one thing that is missing for us as people. We, we read the headlines and we don't look at the detail a lot of the time. So we say, oh, we've got a migrant problem.

We've got more than we've ever we've, we've got more than we've had. And he said, well, actually the eighties, nineties we had more or say this, this is the worst. Oh, actually there's more people we've actually dig down into the details and get some facts and work on facts and figures. 'cause what you tend to see now is, I've never seen it before, is now you've got news agents news, well, news outlets, fact checking information that institutions that we should trust are pushing into the public domain.

And why are we having to fact check fact, not fact check. Sorry, fact, there was a C in there. Why are we fact checking information that we should be trusting these institutions? They should be telling us the truth. And that's 'cause it's become sensationalist. And sensationalism has really paid. it, all of this, there's, there's a new channel in Pakistan.

It's one of the biggest new channels in Pakistan. If you hear the music that they have, right, it is anxiety inducing to a level that you wouldn't believe. It's, it's, you cannot mistake it, but that sensationalism works, for them. The only thing is the one, the one thing that I've always seen, I say to people in Pakistan, if you, for for a week turn off your news, news sources, whether it's, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, right?

Turn off your news sources, turn off Twitter, turn off whatever. You'll actually start looking at your neighbors like humans again. you, you will stop looking. you'll be, you'll be looking at people as human beings again, and not just as bad statistics. you won't be looking at things, at the bad in the world.

when we were growing up. We had a world which was, which, like I, I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything, but if I look at my children the way they've grown up, my son just turned 18 yesterday and my daughter's 13., part of my day is spent just worrying about, if they made it home from school, okay.

Or not. And, and they're perfectly fine. They live in a very safe place. They go to a good school, they go to a good place. But all you hear about is acts of intolerance, acts of hate, and, and it pollutes your mind. there if, if there has to be a trust building activity. I think people in the media have to become very, and, and people on social media also have to become very, very sensible about what they're talking about.

Scott, you, and, and you've come up with very good nuggets of, inputs in this conversation. One of the major things that, that we don't, notice is nobody is willing to fact check. Nobody is willing to go inside and do deeper research like we've gotten hostage to 360 characters or whatnot.

Right., and, and that headline's good enough for us. But, going to Douglas's Point, and I think Mr. Mandela is one of the best examples of how to bring a country together. that it, it was actually pretty well immortalized in that movie Invictus. where, where you saw the effort that he would put in from his, within his own community as well, to show them that this was the past.

Can you, I imagine the amount of forgiveness it took a person who'd spent the majority of his life in jail at the hands of a certain people, and to come out and say, okay. Today is zero. We start and we rebuild. And, but if you look at the world right now, do you see how much suffering we have? Do you, do you like, and it's, it's all of these things.

It's, it's the fear of the known, compounded by statistics that nobody's fact checked. it's just create creating a, a level of hysteria, which is very different. the real question is how do we build trust in this environment? I think, I think you make a very valid point. as an example, when you start looking at data, we've got a lot of, what I would say is the data quality that we have is generally not that great.

It's not necessarily clean and therefore you've put data into something. You expect AI and or quant to actually give you data and analysis and, and points. It's going to give you data, which you can't make necessarily a very good informed decision on whether you're a board of directors, whether you're in a business.

and we don't have people at the intellectual capacity for competency to be able to challenge that data because they don't have the upskilling, they don't have necessarily the right skills. They don't have a learning environment or learning culture, knowledge tree knowledge, culture, environment where we're learning fast enough and technology is, is faster than human development in this area, which is a technical problem.

If the data was making better decisions, which enriches our life and enriches the processes and efficiencies of what we do and how we do it, and even to a point of compassion and experiential, we'd be in a different place. So you've got parallel lines working, saying, well, I've got this data, but how much do I trust this?

Well, what's my data trust on this because, or do I have no choice but to accept this data because I haven't got any other ability to challenge this to make a better decision? That's one thing. Like an example, you know, you could have a AI bot on on this interview today. Taking notes doesn't necessarily mean it will give you the depth of what we are discussing today.

That all forms into the experience. So there has to be some radical change around the way we receive information, receive data. And I think, I still believe that, and Doug and I have spent a lot of time with this doing design led thinking innovation, but we always, always, always put people at the center.

Why? Because we understand the value of psychological safety and wellbeing and trust around. We put that together with technology and then grow. You pivot. And the companies that have done that have proved that they've pivoted. So I think there's a lot of, it's an expansive subjects, there's no question about that.

But that hasn't helped and that isn't helping, technology is outpacing. The data and the data isn't trusted and the data doesn't always correlate to real, life situations that people can make better decisions on. That's a good point about thanks I something I think, on that topic, it's something, when we, we know we scratching the surface in terms of ethics around AR and as said quantum, it's around the corner and I don't think any of us really deeply appreciate what that impact is gonna be.

And we still figuring that out. And, and I think the scary thing is we are the ones that are probably more in the know than most so because of what we get exposed to. But, but it does tell you that the world out there is incrediblyuneducated around the impact of these things. And you couple that with.

The big unicorns, social media houses, and they, they prey on your data. They prey on your, your, your human emotion. and that's how they make their money is, is through that deep neuroscience understanding of your world and influencing that, rightfully or wrongfully. And, and I think this is, coming back to pods, when, when our daughter was 13, she was going on 18 so far, I can tell you now you've got two 18 year olds there, even though your daughter's 13, as the girls tend to grow faster.

But, but the influences that the young people have, and I've got access to. It's, they're far more exposed to it, far more quickly than, than when we were growing up. talking about, far, you mentioned the cherished childhoods and, and we all reminisce on those simple days. but we didn't have all this technology and, and corresponding stress.

So it is something that's, it's becoming enormously complex to navigate through this both generationally, technology wise, public policy wise, poli politics, geopolitics wise, it's becoming more and more complex. And I, and I still come back to that, what you say, Jeff, is that human to human interaction and being there for each other and whether it's in business, whether it's in, in your personal relationships, cross borders.

And I think you and father are a great example of lifelong trusted, friends and partners through, through some tough times together. So that's what we need more of and, and as many aspects as we can, can. Something I just wanna add to that. So, okay. And it comes back to what we were saying about human and far, I, I like what you said, said, if we just take away the inputs that we have are outside of our community, it helps us look at our community differently as human beings.

And one of the things that we  did when I was in hostage negotiations, one of the key things is humanize the victim. And I think the noise that we get and the way that social media or the internet and things can, it can very easily dehumanize, but we dehumanize on, fractures and chisholm's like we've had from a British perspective.

You've got remainers and, , those who voted to leave, then you've got the political divide in the Amer America and stuff. So it's very easy for us to then look at, and then you've got us and them from the immigrants and the people who aren't immigrants and stuff. So I think social media's very good at creating a.

Our ident helping us identify with groups. What it then does is helps us dehumanize the other groups. And I think that is one of the key dangers we're having. We, we can get into a group that we identify with, but it makes us, enables us to dehumanize anyone outside of that group, which I think is extraordinarily dangerous.

Got, many years ago, I'll share this story. We came up with a really interesting analogy. I was studying at, at Duke in North Carolina. And over the weeks we, one of the American guys, he said, there's this, this, this fast chicken place, fried chicken, this is the best stuff, and we wound ourselves up for weeks and it was like a three hour drive away and there was like 30 of us and we all eventually said, okay, we're gonna go to this awesome place that you've raved so much about.

And, we were harped up and we all got in cars and drove three hours there. And, expecting the most amazing thing. And when we got that was, it was pretty bad. And we coined a phrase, it was an escalating commitment to a losing cause. And I think that is something that the world is becoming really good at, is, escalating our, our emotional commitment.

And actually it's to a losing course, quite frankly, most of the times it's to a losing course. So, it's just a interesting analogy that you I'd I, I'd like to add to that, and whilst I'm going back in history, I met Nelson Mandela back in 1995 and I was very privileged, to do that. I was working on a project at the time called the One in 10 House, and it was the telecommunication house for the disability.

The reason why I met him was because he stopped what he was doing to actually come over in his Versace shirt and shake my hand. And he wanted me to talk about the project. And it was, as I said, it was everything about the disability. And just to share with you that he had that compassion and that deep understanding of empathy.

And, and he had big vision. And one thing Douglas has taught me, and he is taught me many things, but the one thing he has taught me is the word Ubuntu. And, uh, he's ingrained, he's tried over the years to ingrain that into my DNA. Um, it doesn't work very well when I'm wearing an All Blacks rugby shirt, but it does actually work most of the time.

And I gotta say, the Ubuntu, Something that if we as the world could create a slower movement and we could actually bring what Scott was saying in terms of the small groups and turning those small groups into bigger groups, with Ubuntu, the world would be such a much better place. Absolutely difference.

You know, it's goes to the heart of saying, surely if I make others a better version of themselves, you become a better version. We just had a, we just had a mild earthquake, so everybody's just coming up and asking. It's amazing how parts of the world if that had to happened in the uk. Oh, no, no. Ourselves by this point.

Yeah, no, the last time, the last time it was, uh, it was pretty strong. It was pretty strong. This, this time it was started shaking. I was just waiting for the, God forbid, the second one to,come, the last one literally made the building go left and right. but Bantu is a very strong concept, Jeff. It's a very strong concept.

It's a very strong concept. I, I went to the US for a year. I spent a year in the US back in 97, 98, so like every decade or somehow we ended up in a different location., and in 97, 98. This was the toughest year of my life. it was the toughest year of my life simply because I went to a place in Rhode Island where in the entire year I was only able to make three or four friends.

these were people who were, military kids who'd seen more of the world. they were more tolerant., they were, they were like two, two or three of them are lifelong friends. simply because, at a time when, when I went there, they're only the, the American exposure. To a large extent for somebody with my accent, which is, which at that time wasn't neutral.

It was more, towards the British because having spent, my childhood in, in England, it was more that way. it, it would remind them of a character in a Simpsons cartoon called apu. And APU was a seven 11 store owner. And, it didn't matter to them that I came from, I was speaking their language, fluently or, that I was coming from a much better quality of life with the, with the privileged background that I'd had in Pakistan.

I went to a normal high school, and that was the toughest year because all I was dealing with was ignorance. ignorance, which led to fear, which often resulted in, mimicry and mockery. These three people who'd had more of an experience because their parents had been transferred all over the world.

they, they were, they were American kids, but, but they were really, really, great people. I, I really believe Jeff, when you say, and when Douglas, you say this, also.

Yes, the world is connected, but we need to connect it in a way where the human experience of experiencing people from different backgrounds, is, is really stressed upon. It's, it's something that people, get out and discover. Like Jeff could have been, very, very, reclusive and closed off.

And, and, and, and I've had this privilege, Geoff I don't know if you've met Garfield or not, but Garfield is a person who came to Pakistan. He's a Britisher, came to Pakistan. He used to work for Redley Scott Associates their executive producer. We, he was producing a commercial in Pakistan for the polio program.

And he came to Pakistan and, he just refused a big, big vehicle, an armoured vehicle. And he said, no. We'll, we'll, we'll just try and be, where, where you need us to be and in the type of exposure that you need us to be in. Two visits town. He invested in my company. He'd only spent like six, seven days with me.

And, he's, he's literally grown into an elder brother for me. Like, there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him. There's literally nothing in the world that I wouldn't do for him because what I realized was it's not your background. It's not the colour of your skin, it's not your religion. the world is very, very fully becoming polarized towards two kinds of people.

One, the initiated and the tolerant and the other, which are the uninitiated and the intolerant the world has to come down. this divide, the Gulf is becoming bigger and bigger. we've. The more we've, we've got people who are aspiring for bigger things. You will always see the Jeffs and the Fahard and the Douglass and the Scots come together because we realize we can be productive together.

And then there are those who don't realize that this productivity can be unlocked. And then there's a very small, tiny population that feeds off this gulf with media channels. Like Douglas said, all of these new age media, platforms, and, and they feed off the, off of this under the, the garb of freedom of speech, freedom of hate is being, processed with, with freedom.

I've never met you, Scott. I've, I've interacted with Douglas. Geoff has been a, a, a very old friend. It didn't take a lot to have this friendship come about. It just brought, it was brought together by shared ambition. It was the ambition to do good, to be good and to help people who are trying to do good.

it's, it's, it's all of this that has to work out, but there's this very small pick that feeds and keeps on creating this gulf. That reminds me of something,that I was talking to another guy called Scott. Obviously a good guy 'cause his name's Scott. He's, the CEO of CEO of trust builder.

I was talking to him and it was about pe people who see the world. And it comes from negotiation backgrounds. The way I interpret this a little bit, but the zero sum game. The zero sum game where I look after myself at the expense of others and stuff. That is where this trust happens because we try to protect what we've got.

We've got, we see the world and there's is a finite resource and we've gotta fight for our section. We either wanna make it bigger or protect What we have. When trust happens is when we go beyond that and we start, as you said, by bit of forgiveness, but also then the olive tree. So we see the world as a slightly bigger different place.

And when we move from that area of looking after ourselves and seeing things as finite, as a resource, we've got to protect or to keep or to have and move beyond that, into externalizing that and build, what we would say in negotiation is make the pie bigger. Don't argue about the slice of the pie. Just make the pie bigger.

I take that, I take that to one step level. I like the word acceptance. 'cause if I look at anything that ever happens in my life, in my life hasn't always been easy, so loose. once I've accepted. Circumstances, the energetic shift forward, and the ability to trust that my path forward.

there's a great saying by Lazo, which says, the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. And I've always believed that. And you just have this huge energetic shift. And, it's a gut instinct of knowing, but it's when you get to acceptance. 'cause when you accept the circumstances, you're not going back.

You're going forward. And I think there's a lesson here for all of us. We can talk about courageous leadership, we can talk about, energetic leadership. We can talk about all these other leadership, nuances. But the ability to have the knowing to say we have to go forward and we have to go forward is a trusting element within you.

and I want to call it intu. Another one was intuitive leadership. But it's really the ability to go forward. and I said before, acceptance, of the circumstances is the enabler for growth and going forward, I think you, so Jeff, go, I'm sorry. Go. Sorry, Scott. I have a, I have a very funny anecdote.

You know how you do, you go to a different organization for the first time and, you wouldn't, nobody knows you, nobody invites you for lunch. Nobody has, it takes time to, to gel in, right? So, one of my friends really figured out a very nice way to, have an icebreaker over there.

What he would do is, on his desk, the very first day, he would buy a big packet of crisps. Air, open the back, put it in a plate, and keep it out there for anybody. Now, anybody, crisps is something that was always the, that was always something that, that was enticing to people, right? It's, it's a savory snack.

You like it. People invariably come in and they start a conversation, you know, the Sufi way of life. This is exactly how they start by feeding each other. I always imagined if I were, if I were to go and live anywhere else in the world, the first thing that I would do [is try and have a meal for everybody on the street, because those are the people that my children are gonna grow up with.

Those are the people that my family are gonna spend time with. So, Fard, if you go back into English history, okay, and my grandfather was a part of that, okay? In the 1920s, he set up the first Biscuit factory for Hunt and Palmers. It was a ritual. You would bring in, the reason why we have biscuit tins is because no one knows what biscuits are actually inside.

Mm-hmm. And you would always go to somebody's house with biscuits. In fact, it was only, probably we, we abolished biscuits in the meeting room tables. Only a few companies. Now, when Doug and I go into the boardroom, do you actually see a selection of biscuits on the table? Because they, it, they, they weren't, they were the ability to start that conversation.

They, they were, they initiated the conversation, but of course, they're like, oh no, we get rid of the biscuits. What they don't realize is, no disrespect, but I've been in Pakistan where it was Ramadan when everybody's drained at the table, you know, but if you had biscuits there, it would get you through.

But religious purposes, you're not allowed to do that. Right. But, but you see, in England, we would have this ritual of biscuits. And biscuits was actually quite a nice thing. It was always a conversation starter, always. I think, what's your favorite? That's a start, isn't it? What's your favorite on the list?

Best ones, that's all. It's, no, no, no. Can I have some more of the chocolate please? Always. I'm not too fan of the chocolate ones. I like the other ones. So, there you go, Douglas. What I'd just like to bring you in on, and it is, and I could, I do apologize, can never remember what this is. The phrase that you talked, Jeff, which is obviously a, a phrase from your childhood about, that you said is a way of life.

Jeff mentioned it and I you've been to, you've been to, for those of us, 'cause you've explained it to me before, but those of us that were listening who have not heard it, would you mind explaining that concept? I know it's a, a word. Yeah. It doesn't translate into a word in English. It's more of a, a way of thinking.

Yeah, it's, it's a very deep, as far, it's a very deep African proverb and, it's, it, it talks about a, a couple of things. And, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, these were some of the South African icons and Nobel Peace press winners that, that led with this type of philosophy. And they, they literally led with this philosophy that says, always keep the door a job behind you for others.

Always bring others with you. And even if, as Jeff said, even if you walk slower, wait for those, but don't leave them behind. And you become stronger. And there's a wonderful analogy of a farmer and, and a a and a competing farm next door. And, with the wind, what happens is the wind will pick up the grain and, and the, and the pollen, and it'll pollinize the, the, the farm.

And so, when one farmer who, Who has a, has a very good and disciplined way of tending to his crops. And then on the other side, you have a farmer who doesn't. And, and you go to the person who's, who is a very good farmer and say, why do you do it? Why, why do you help your farmer next door?

And he said, well, if I don't help him, his crops aren't gonna be at the right standard, which will eventually affect micros. And I think that's the philosophy of just inclusion, of, of helping others without any expectation in return. in terms of, of that. And I think this is the, Fahd mentioned it in, in that, that that's spirit of doing things where it's actually through kindness.

You lead with kindness and empathy, and you don't expect anything in return because it just, it's just the right thing to do. It brings people together. And so Ubuntu is, is very much that around, bringing everybody with you, going slower, but bringing everybody with you. They all benefit and they all enjoy.

I think it's something that it's of course it's an African proverb, but I think it's a great philosophy in life that allows you to, to see the world differently. And, there's a wonderful book that I've, I've used in my executive mentorship in the past is Viktor Frankl's Man Search For Meaning.

And that's a, a Austrian, a Jewish, Austrian psychologist who was, who had a choice of being incarcerated in an Auschwitz, the concentration camp, or going to American and ploughs his trade as a psychologist. And he chose to go into the concentration camp to look like for his grandparents. And he wrote a book about that experience.

He said, in life, you can, everything can be taken away from you, your right to food, your right to education, everything, even your clothes can be taken away from you. But he said, the one thing that cannot be taken away from you is the fact that you can love a human being. No one can take that away from you.

And it's, I think when in, as we get older in life, we start to stitch all these, these experiences, all these learnings together in a, in a tapestry that defines you as a person, but also hopefully defines and changes positively those around you. that, that they don't, you don't lose the tapestry of your life.

with one's kids and that as well. It's, and I'm, I'm a father. I've got an 18-year-old granddaughter, so I'm slightly ahead of you. and I think that's why I've got a lot more gray hair. But, but it's, it's that. Those gifts in life that we can pass down to our children, our grandchildren, the people that we engage with in business.

and when you have that like-mindedness, especially in business and you have that trust, you do amazing things. That's when I've looked at all the most amazing, deals I've ever worked on as a team, never as an individual. That's when you succeed the most. When you have that spirit belief, camaraderie, that's what makes the difference.

And, and so far you absolutely nailed it earlier. it's really a powerful combination, in both our personal lives as well as our professional lives. I. No far, you're gonna say, I think that would've been a great place to finish. So if you just wanna add on to that, that's fantastic. I think Douglas, Douglas said ev everything impeccably.

Well, I, I just wanted to say that, the world still has a lot of believers. I think every faith on the planet talks about one thing, which unites us all, do unto others as you would have done to yourselves. I think all of the things that we talk about, whether we talk about trust, we talk about love, we talk about security, we talk about, wellbeing.

I think it's in the giving more than the taking. And when you give it more, you receive it as well, and you receive it mult in multifold. So when I, when I look at my customers, when I look at my, employees, when I look at my friends. I always want to be the person, who is, looking at them like he would want his own life to be.

And, and I, I, just something that I think all of our faiths together. nobody can fault this line that do unto others as you would have done to you. Right. It's true. It's true. And Scott, I just wanted to add, , I was at the airport recently picking up a, a copy of the Harvard Business Review.

And when you go into the review, there's a great article there that says we don't need a DEI program to create DEI. I want to add we don't need a trust program, okay. To create trust and impact and togetherness in the world and make the world a safer, better, more enriched place for all of us to not just survive.

To thrive. And I think that's really important. Okay. And I think that's a great thing to, to finish on. So gentlemen, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure and an interesting conversation as always. And fa, thank you very much for taking time it as the first time guest and to meet.

Thank you much for having me, Scott. A one there you bit of Arabic in for us or so many words. I've traveled for 14 years and only know about 15, which is terrible. I know some. Okay. So on that. So thank you very much for your time, gentlemen. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody.

Welcome to How Might We Align Sports Innovation With Leadership and Trust, the podcast that explores bold questions at the intersection of leadership, innovation, and trust. In this episode, we’re diving into a powerful question: How might we align sports innovation with leadership and trust?

Joining me are two exceptional guests bringing insight from two very different—but deeply connected—worlds. Dr. Beatrice Constandache is a specialist in sports medicine with a career spanning elite athletics, Olympic-level performance, and cutting-edge research into energy, emotion, and innovation in sport. She is currently a member of the medical committee of the International Association of Ultrarunners and founder of the Luce Innovations Medical Academy.

Also with us is Geoff Hudson Searle, an international bestselling author and seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in design-led innovation and trust-based leadership. Geoff brings deep business insight and a compelling vision for how human intelligence, collaboration, and emotional connection can transform both teams and organisations.

Together, we explore what business can learn from elite sport—from team culture, emotional intelligence, and resilience, to the power of energy, empathy, and trust. It’s a wide-ranging conversation that challenges conventional thinking and offers a fresh take on high performance—on and off the field.

Dr. Beatrice Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-beatrice-constandache-2650639b/

Geoff Hudson Searle Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffsearle/

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Transcript: This is AI generated and may contain errors

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of How Might We, in this episode is how might we Align sports innovation with Leadership and Trust? And I've got two guests with me today, one of my regular guests, which is Jeff Hudson Cell and a new guest, which is Dr. Beatrice. So welcome both of you to the podcast and would you like to introduce yourselves?

Who would like to go first? Thank you so much. Welcome. Thank you so much. My Hi everyone. My name is Dr. Ris Constantia. I am a sports medicine specialist with experience in rugby medicine, athletics, medicine. I've worked with Olympic athletes and now I am currently a member in the medical committee of Ultra Running International Association.

And I founded the Loose Innovations Medical Academy currently [00:01:00] supporting the elite athletes and sports medicine to bring up the innovations in in this area. Okay, lovely. Thank you very much. It'll be, and Jeffrey, would you like to Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Jeff Hudson, sell 30 years plus global international seasoned executive in independent non-executive director for the last 20 years, around two separate businesses in the UK specializing in consultancy growth and design led innovation and trust.

I'm an author of seven books, sorry, international bestselling author of seven books and public thought leader and speaker. Okay. We could, we've gotta get the international bestselling, haven't we? We can't. We're just not bestselling. We are in, we're Global. We remember. You remember that was what I was saying to Oak when we spoke last round.

Yes, I remember that from Oak. Yeah. Hilarious. Hilarious. I was the only one who was not an author. So the whole list. So Dr. Beatrice, welcome and welcome to the podcast. [00:02:00] Thank you so much for having me. Oh, you're more than welcome. . So from your experience and obviously working through all the sports and bringing sports innovation, how do you think that would transpire into the business world and leadership?

I think that throughout the years I've saw the struggles of the athletes at the highest level of sports Yeah. And the medicine level also there . and I would like here to give the microphone, to Jeff

so to say overdue there, Jeffrey. Excellent. Thank you, sir. So I've got a couple of school of thoughts on this. Okay. So I have worked with sports professionals around the world. In fact, one of my very good friends was an NBA basketball championship. And he, when he left basketball, he transferred over to the business world and became a very successful c-suite executive in a Fortune 100 company a after his sports career.

So [00:03:00] I've had the chance to actually spend quality time with. True professionals from sports. I've also looked at sports coaching. So if I look at sports coaching that really innovated the world my favorite coach of all time is Vince Lombardi. And I, he was the most successful NFL coach in the world.

So successful that the rugby world particularly the All Blacks decided in their wisdom that they wanted to improve their percentage. They used the Lombardi methodology and no big surprise there was an 84% percentage win as a direct result of using the methodology and the techniques and the ideas.

Good friends of mine have written books on and around the mindset of sports professionals. Why mindset is so important and why innovation is so important. And I think that, we're constantly looking in leadership at the moment about, reinventing [00:04:00] leaders taking the possible to the impossible.

We're looking at, we're looking at very clever techniques around design-led innovation. We're looking very carefully at the way people behave in organizations. We've looked at touching on people, productivity, culture, psychological wellbeing. But one thing that sports professionals need to do cont consistently is they need to work as a team.

If they don't work as a team, they don't perform. And when you look at the business world, we're constantly looking at dissemination of people in organizations. We're constantly looking at separate businesses that don't communicate with one another. They don't collaborate with one another.

They don't speak and communicate in the way that you need to. , There's so many moving parts here, but the question I pose is that, with the clever things that.

Dr. Beatrice is doing right now, particularly on and around sports medicines. It's all linked to better [00:05:00] performance. I look at, I don't just look at sports, I look at the military and, if you heard Oakland when he spoke the last time we were on, honor, respect, trust it's a military, but in certain degrees of collaboration, you look at team sports and then you look at the business team.

But actually, I'd like to hear more about team sports. I've talked a lot about the business side and what I think the alignment is, but Beatrice has had direct.

Experience with this, and love to hear about some of her experiences in working across, looking and how do you prescribe new medicine? What is the research behind this? What's the alignment?

I think that'd be fascinating to hear. Jeff, I might, I must say I absolutely agree with your important aspect that you mentioned. In a team, in sports team, it's crucial to have this mindset, but from a empathic side of side of view. [00:06:00] Point of view. Why? Because we are humans. We all have emotions, whether we are women or men.

We both have this movement in our body that our emotions are energy in movement and not also we have to be energized on the field, but we need to control our emotions also. And who can do better than that? I think the doctor has the most important role to, to bring this up. And when a pa, when a athlete come, came to me I als al always tried not to see only the medical aspect but also the emotions that he had because a lot of a lot of athletes are dealing with emotions and nobody tells them how to deal with these emotions.

That's extremely important. Is emotional intelligence also in sports no one talks about. Yeah. And what you said that someone needs to collaborate, we need [00:07:00] human intelligence. Yes. Human emotional intelligence, that's another level. And that in in elite sports has some has some, not so great points. We need to come there also with resources. And there's a lot of, there's a lot to talk about also the innovations in this aspect as human approach. Not very few times have I seen the actions. Can I question on that? 'cause I think that's a really good conversation about what you bring up about emotional intelligence.

As an example. I'm not really sure how it works in a rugby team, but in NFL we, we have the quarterback, I imagine it's in rugby, it's the captain of the team. But you see the captain of the team in rugby or the quarterback in NFL, there, there's gonna be a game plan. Okay? There's a play. They have to make a play if they're not using their emotional intelligence and if they're not communicating, it doesn't matter how risky.

That play is that they're going to make [00:08:00] for to try and win the ball and actually go further down the field. Communication has to be vital because two things can happen, failure and lose the ball, or more importantly, have a severe injury which could take out team members as a direct result of taking something on that's too risky.

So that empathy, listening, collaboration, exactly has to ab is effectively a, an ethos within the team spirit because they have to be working together and believe in the captain and believe in whatever decision he's making for, on behalf of the team that it's right. And that's that, and that his view here is about winning at all costs.

Absolutely. And athletes when they come to compete, they have to forget everything. What they're going through. Their most important thing is winning on the field, and that does an Olympic athlete, Olympic team athlete. So that's what it takes to [00:09:00] be resilient, to have a high motivation and to thrive.

Whatever the conditions are the same for everybody, is just, some are winners and some cannot focus enough or so many reasons are there. But the inner emotional intelligence inner, coping factors. And that also can be be from having a good team doctor, a good team psychologist, and everyone in their surroundings must have the same mindset, must uplift the players, must uplift the athletes in whatever that takes.

That's why being at the so high level, it's important also the doctor to be also emotional intelligent. Not, I'm not talking about the medical curriculum that he has. Sure. Because every doctor has that and he's. Outstanding. But he needs to add on this a holistic approach, so to say.

Yeah, the emotional field, [00:10:00] the spiritual field, how, what the athlete wants, why is it important for him to win, why is it important for him to win this specific in, let's say in England? Why is that for him? Because when we define why is that important, then we can arrange every other aspect in his body or motivation because we need to dive deep in and we need to do that.

Having a compliance. The athletes in my regard they knew me for a long years. So they had trust in me. An athlete can trust someone who came for some little time. Yes. They need to build this confidence with you. And this this has helped me into build also the confidence that I needed for them to be, to recover from every inner injury.

And some of the times only my good words, my optimist the [00:11:00] ideal. The ideal words that they needed to hear at that specific moment, like emotional uplift. That meant for some more than just to tell them, okay, you have an injury, take this medicine, and that's it. They need also emotional empathy.

They need someone to be there to support them. Whether there's psychologist, the team psychologist, the team doctor, the coach. The coach is more technique, but some of the time the coaches are also involved in other aspects. And that's why when we go in you raised a huge point there because the the most grilling game that ever took place in NFL history was the Ice Bowl.

I dunno if you've heard of it. It was minus 40 degrees. It was Green Bay Packers versus the Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately, Scott, there wasn't those luxurious pads in those days that you talked about. When you went over, you really went over and somehow. Vince Lombardi had to build the confidence and [00:12:00] say, you're gonna take that ball and you're gonna drill it across the line to win the game in minus 40.

And whether you've got the team together and you they're, they've got no energy. They're low, they're feeling it. It's minus sort and the snow's coming down. Exactly. You're gonna, you are taking that ball. You can do it, you're gonna drive it, you're gonna drill that ball straight into the red zone.

It's a hard thing to do, but you need to be as again. You could argue are these coaches superhuman? Because they need to know intimately each and every one of the players. They need to make sure that the players gel well in order to get the best out of them. And the best out of them is collaboration.

The best is teamwork. We used, you used two words earlier, which I love, and one was resilience and the other was trust. And and Scott and I have done a lot of work on that, but I see full transparency when you start talking about resiliency and trust, because without it, you don't have a team.

Can I just, something that's interesting because I've watched a video by Simon Serna and he talks about when he goes to the Navy seals. So I'd be interested in Dr. Beatrice, [00:13:00] your view of this from a team sport perspective. And he talks about the trust and performance grid. And the seals would say, I would prefer to have somebody's medium performance and high trust over high performance and low trust.

Exactly. Because. It comes to the mindset. Trust comes also from mindset. If and if you trust, if you have a companion, yeah. If you have someone you can trust, then you can rely on him. When your, let's say body comes low with energy, but the other one's energy, the other one's trust the other one's level of energy and frequency of energy.

There are some waves of frequency that we only look at the person and when we have trust, we look at the person, we know that person, he his. Gone with us through downs and low ups and downs. And we know that in rugby, we ha we have a saying it doesn't matter who stays in front of us, it matters only who's with us who's in the team.

[00:14:00] I'm not re I not remember the exact terms, but this is it. We don't care who's opponent it, it cares what team, who I have in my team. So if we are strength, we have strength, we have. We act as a team. We trust each other in the lowest moments in the rugby game. That makes all the difference because together we know how to react.

We just look, I just look at you, and then you know that I cannot cope with this really to run like a sprint to, to put the ball yeah. Down in rugby. And then I look at you, and then you immediately see and react because in in in sports, in a elite sports, you need to fast, react fast.

And then if you don't notice your colleague, your teammate, that he needs you, then you are lost. You lost the chance, and the team loses. And that's why trust and this energy. Uplifts more. And I had a meeting, I had [00:15:00] spoken in the Global Women's Summit recently about mitochondrias, the energy powerhouse of ourselves.

And I said there that no amount of mitochondria thrives in isolation and in team sports, we are not isolated. We have something that very few very few jobs have, yeah, team support. You can be manager, you can have team, but this team for athletes goes everywhere. And they're more like the same more, less, 1, 2, 3.

They are more or less there or not. But in in general, there's the same team that goes on and on years, maybe months. And then they thrive because mitochondria thrive together. It said it has, studies have shown that the mitochondrias where when they, when you, for example, Jeff have super mitochondria, super fuel, and then if I talk with you, it's contagious in a good way.

I [00:16:00] become your mitochondria and stimulates my mitochondria. So we can all, both I hear you. I hear you. At the same level. Level. Tell me, I hear you on mitochondria and some of the things you're talking about in the business world. If we talk about business leadership and we talk about trust, right?

In the business world we have seen massive reinventions in the way we have to think and also redefine and reinvent business to create new performance levels that will work through uncertainty, that will work through horrid terrains of overcoming adversity challenge. Okay. How have you seen sports innovation change in the same way?

Has there been radical rethinks about how we get athletes to perform bigger, better, stronger, or is it very much the same techniques that have been going over the decades? [00:17:00] Unfortunately is the same thing I hear every single year at the world Congresses, sports medicine or sports science. And that's why I'm a bit frustrated to hear the same medicine, the same therapies, the same aspect, perspective on muscular.

That's why we brought in my latest symposium highly known chiropractor from America, who has developed for example amazing technique that we didn't learn about it in the medical university and it works. I bring the innovations to, I collaborate with such, tremendous professionals that have developed on their own years of research also in Germany years of researching and years of clinical expertise.

Sure. To bringing up the latest, the you don't, I don't care what you eat, I don't care how much [00:18:00]you train. If you eat not the things that are good to you, to your intestine, then you can eat whatever veggies or proteins amount that doesn't come in through your intestinal tract because the intestinal tract, has anyone looked at your intestinal tract?

If it absorbs. We can, we need to look there first and then say, okay, you need that and that aspect. But let's look at your mitochondrias. Let's look on your production of energy at the cellular level. Can we go deeper then? Because in sports medicine is very important. The a TP production, the molecule of energy production.

Because if you don't have a TP, then you need your muscles need to regenerate. And two, they cannot uplift this effort. And then we, that's why in sports medicine is crucial to look at the mitochondrias. And I didn't see when I worked in high. [00:19:00] Okay. Sports medicine unfortunately I didn't see 10 this interest in mitochondrias.

We were all interested in tactic acid. We were all interested in, okay, we had an injury, let's do it fast. But no one really ever looked deep down why this muscle was injured, why what had produced was the cause. This is why our athletes taking I mean we, I remember the Olympics at Sochi when they were giving urinal tests to all of the athletes.

Are they looking at other supplements to take sometimes to enhance? Bodies doping. Yes. Yes. Anti-doping measures. Yes. Yes. Okay. This is another talk, the anti-doping. It's another domain we need to keep a healthy, clean sport and not cheat. Yeah. That's the main Yeah, exactly. Thing.

And of course it's really a lot of [00:20:00] financial effort to do that, to, to search every regulat athlete. Compliance. Exactly. I worked also with the World Rugby anti-Doping team. Yeah. I delivered some courses and I was happy to, to more to give awareness because a lot of athletes, they don't know that they're really, they're the only one responsible for what they take for the intake.

The meat can be exposed to drugs, to supplements. It was a case back in I think I don't remember when, but it was a big case when team at the World Championship was infected by the meat and no one really Yeah. Exactly, and those standards must also be prepared. It's it's lot of, so when you think about, when you think about anti-doping, you're getting into misinformation.

Mistrust. Exactly. Okay. And in the business world, we have a lot of misinformation and mistrust and, it's a very passionate subject, both [00:21:00] Scott and I, about how we how we live in the post-truth world and how we rebuild trust, not just in the respective industries, but also in societal.

And it's very much back to the same thing. We need to be able to. Be more transparent. We need better opens. We need to have that whole thing where we need to listen more, we need to be more empathetic, we need to be more compassionate, we need better understanding before we can really and genuinely move into better communication.

'cause I believe with better communication, we can all benefit and we can all benefit from, trusted communities, relationships, and collaborations. But it has to start with trust. And if we don't have trust, what have we got? What are we left with? Exactly. We cannot bid, build connections without trust.

Correct. Yeah, I think it comes back to what you're saying, Beatrice, and what you're saying, Jeff, about the information and understanding of [00:22:00] the impacts. And Samir is back having clear governance and agreed standards by which things are gonna be measured and the transparency about how we go about testing and how we go about putting those forward.

If we've got that, at least we're building trust in the process. 'cause people can see it and it's not too technical hidden. And that's, I think in business, you've got a, and it's quite often like businesses will say, oh, we've decided no and whatever it is, it's recruitment or whatever. Or you've gone for a loan and you've said no, and we're not gonna tell you why anyway.

Oh, thanks for that. What can I now do with that information then? Because there's a big lack of any explanation as a, then it becomes very much a distrusting and people create their own narrative around those stories. Yeah, a hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. I think that there's several things here.

I think that the world needs to go through a period of reinvention. [00:23:00] We've seen, yes, we've seen wars, we've seen geopolitics, we've seen new governments. Last year there was 80 plus new governments that turned up with new manifestos and change around regimes, taxations, policy, regulation. It affected macroeconomics in all levels.

And people need sustainability. And I think that, yes, what we were doing five years ago is obsolete. I totally agree with that. But the, where there needs to be better policy, better regulation in order to innovate I'm not talking about. To stop innovation because I think we need more innovation, but we're only going to get innovation if we can take people from isolation, loneliness, and working on oneself rather than collaborating in a team.

We need that new thinking. We need that new, the new creativity, innovation, and ideas to come into [00:24:00] the sports world and into medicine. We also need it in the business world. We need design led thinking and innovation, which really makes a difference to immediacy, medium term and short term objectiveness.

When you go through what economically we've been through in the last sort of 20 months what you bring is short-termism on everything and there's no long range planning. And I think that we understand that the trust model has definitely changed, but in order to get trust back, we need to reinvent.

Everything that's required to put the components Exactly and put the elements into a proper process that can be easy applied to the generations, because we're not dealing with old people all the time, but we are dealing with Gen Zs, millennials and baby boomers, et cetera. And significantly there are new generations being born, allegedly, every, from what I've read in the press.

So all of this [00:25:00] needs to be accommodated and it is behavior driven. Trust is an act of behavior, is an act of cognitive behavior and so forth. The intelligences that you talk about earlier I'm really strong on, 'cause I've written about this at great length. I think that yes, we need academia, we need the level of iq.

We need eq, which is emotional intelligence. You also talked about spiritual. And I know Duke University came up with decency intelligence, but there needs to be a lot more wisdom and knowledge that goes into this because it's not all about what AI or chat GDP spits out and hopefully works, and people can't challenge that.

It's about actually having humans that can actually say, actually AI and chat gp, dp or this white paper and that white paper, the thinking and the creativity. Look, Einstein never had ai any certainly didn't have DGP, right? But look, miraculously we had some [00:26:00] amazing things that came outta that, right?

When you think about it, right? So look and. Gravity. Gravity was formed without ai, it was Cambridge and Ashley, he couldn't do it. He couldn't do it at Cambridge. He was in a, he was in a Lincolnshire cottage in 1656, and suddenly he thought, I'm bored. It is COVID. He ha I Spanish flu on board.

So he created gravity. So the question is, the human brain can be trained like an AI or an algorithm. It can, it has got a lot more intelligence. But the fact is. We need to bring that out into the open that applies not just to sports and sports innovation, but it also definitely applies to the business world and at all levels from top down.

But ultimately the glue, as I talk about it, is the trust did intelligence. And I believe that the umbrella for that is holding all of the intelligence. And I think all of us human beings need to start developing these intelligences if we're going to get [00:27:00] nearer to that goal. That's my thinking anyway regarding this artificial intelligence that is rapidly evolving.

I had a talk in London and he came also to minister with Professor Matt Riman. He developed human intelligence application. We had some talks and I we concluded that the. Human this application that also in medicine are really useful. They only need, from my point of view, I told him yes, but the medical doctor needs to still remain and the medical doctor and this app of tremendous help when it is only one doctor, let's say, in a team needs to we need as medical doctors to see what benefits how this can support the athlete, but not just only the app.

It needs to come with a human experience. Also, the doctor, the someone else. I'm only referring to the sports athlete and the [00:28:00] sports medicine world. And we. Cannot let only human inte the artificial intelligence as high and as sophisticated and as rapid as it is only act alone does also need to be this bond from human, from empathic human.

And love that I love, I call it interconnect. Interconnected. Exactly. Interconnect. We need that interconnected interconnectedness. Yeah. Yeah. Course. And I think we, it's very important for the athletes to do that, to have this human, exactly what we spoke before, some minutes before, and then bring also.

The artificial intelligence was brilliant. Nowadays, I think if you look at AI and it's about what we do it doesn't replace or does it enhance, I think it enhance productivity in a lot of areas, but what it can't do, and I think this is where we are entering the age of the human age, where the differentiator for us is our ability for the compassion, the intelligence, the creativity that does not exist through computers, but the computers can help us, [00:29:00] and AI can help us do stuff.

As you say, it can speed up the process for the doctor, but at the end result, the doctor then with the empathy and the understanding and all that sort of stuff can then use that as a tool to help deliver better, a better, but even if we get the tool, Scott, which I totally agree with you by the way, wholeheartedly.

It's then if you don't have. The understanding or the listening or the engagement or the empathy and compassion. It's not going, people are not gonna engage with the tool. Yeah. They're gonna get scared at the picture and then, and because they don't trust it. 'cause they, yeah. When I look at design of thinking, in the medical world, I know it's different, right?

Because you'll do qualitative and quantitative and there's lots of research and papers written. But certainly from where we stand once we've done the basic analysis, okay. And we understand what needs to be done. We put people first at the center of our business innovation canvas because, and then we apply the technology and then [00:30:00] we've got, we can pivot.

Significant growth. We can't do one without the other. That interconnectedness between humans and between AI or quantum now, because every, we are talking quantum now and quantum physics in many of the new applications. And again, that's a thousand times faster than ai. And AI has been around for a long time.

It's, this is nothing new. Everyone's saying new ai, there's so much techno phobia, but now it's time for humans to start raising the bar. It's the time to step up and start learning, because humans now need to start questioning and challenging the data sets, the data patterns and the trends to be able to make it effective and use creativity and wisdom, intelligence to be able to put forward new ideas and new opportunities.

And I think the opportunities are vast, but not without the learnings. Yes, a tool. And then what's the best way to utilize that tool within the environment? Working [00:31:00] in with what we can do? What can it help me do better than and to enhance my productivity, my efficiency, whatever it is, it doesn't replace.

But if you ask a lawyer today, if you ask a lawyer that, I've got this great tool, and it'll give you a 10% extra time to be creative, I know what those people would be doing, they'd be using for their own downtime. Seriously. So it's that when you start talking about creativity, Google had a KPI in their organization many years ago where 15, 20% of their time would be just to go and have coffee and talk and just spend time with colleagues.

It was a way of, they increased, they pivoted creativity and growth as a direct result of having that as a KPI. They were forced to go to the call zone and play Billards and sit down and have coffee and just talk about what they're doing and being able to interconnect on different projects.

It was great. It was great. It was absolutely great. I'm a great believer that you need, you can only do so much on a screen. You can only do so much on a tool. You need human to human [00:32:00] where you can create and innovate. And even at IBM, we do an awful lot of spending time in boardrooms and spending time with our clients and actually with each other to actually offload ideas.

Ideas and it's a way forward. It's a way forward. It's not, it shouldn't be deemed as, oh God, I've gotta travel to London now I've gotta have a meeting. No, it's about making it fun. It's about making it enjoyable. And that's when the ideas, that's where the magic happens. I think it goes back to Dr.

Beatrice, what you said earlier about when somebody that you trust has that high level of energy and you're in the room with them, then that's is contagious. And then you feed my energy, I feed yours, and you just go, sorry. Did you say happiness? Happiness. We can do a whole thing on happiness. I've just written, I've just written about happiness.

I do think there's a, there's gotta be a direct correlation. You've done the research. I was going to look at the, doing a blog on happiness, trust, and productivity. High levels of [00:33:00] mitochondria and energy bring so much happiness. And I remember the time when I first felt this energy and I couldn't explain what was happening.

To me with the seeing the players also receiving their energy is a field of quantum. A quantum field. Also what Jeff said earlier, we are surrounded by energy molecules, electrons that interconnected with our body, that, that are interconnected with our bodies, with our field. And the moment we ignite this fire in us through our mitochondrias, something extraordinary happens and we just so to say, explode with happiness when we surround each other with high levels of energy.

That's what happens in stadiums. That's what happens when athletes football players, rugby players, any other players are in the stadium. You can't. Ask them how they felt. They [00:34:00] felt like gladiators. That's the mitochondrial level raising. And you can directly measure that what happens before you enter the stadium and how you live.

You live with something extraordinary in your body and you cannot explain exactly as as an athlete why to have that. Okay, it's adrenaline. Okay there this substances that your body makes, produces during this high levels of energy of movement of sports. But there's also something more, and we are just tapping into that.

And this is many times I've experienced this and me as a doctor, as a medical doctor, I could not explain what was that. And I go dive. Beat. Surely the mind is wired. Okay? It's wired. And sometimes, surely the brain needs to be rewired if you are going to change mindset. So if you are, let's say, [00:35:00] a mediocre rugby player to become a, of course, better rugby player, yes, there's an energetic set of prescriptions within that say you've gotta change your any levels, but equally, you've gotta re reprogram the mind.

If you're gonna become better, stronger, more effective, you have to be open to receive. That's the, you have to, that's why you have to be, to pay attention, to keep your focus as an athlete where you have to be. And then when you're focused and you know what you have to do and you not get distracted.

Or someone had a telephone in the next chair next to me and then I look and that, that's gone. That's your level of mindset. It's going down and it's not gonna receive the quantum field. The energy. Yeah. The electrons from the because yeah, we have receptors. And those receptors, you have must have them open and Yeah.

See Scott with Beatrice, [00:36:00] within one week you'll become Spartacus. We'll, we have in the, I'm Spartacus from the film itself. We have in, we have in ultra running, sparta loan. Oh. And it's one of the most hardest, the most difficult ultra running conditions to make for an athlete.

That is I've spoke a bit in my congresses, in my symposiums, and that's the distant that Sparta was made back then in from Athens to deliver this this, a really nice story behind this. And yes we have some athletes in Romania who did it, and they are extraordinary. Wow.

Coming that, there's 2, 2, 2 things I want one the most physically, I think is it Probably. No, it is definitely the most physically challenging thing I've ever done is run a marathon. And I use the word run very loosely by the way I completed it. And it was one of the most, I love it. [00:37:00] Love it.

Physically demanding it. The last five miles. Last five, the most challenging things I've ever done. But however, there's also, as, there's two points I wanna raise. One is another story I read. There was a woman who ran an ultra marathon this week, I think, and she finished three hours ahead of the next the closest man.

Wow. She was home before some of the athletes were crossing the line, like a hundred mile. She was something like three, two to three hours ahead of the quickest man and five hours ahead of the second place woman. Lovely. And she was at home having dinner. That's the woman. Power of women.

Power of women. No, he's not woman. That sounds to me like that's the power of one. Doesn't matter who's that's somebody whose mindset one focused woman. One. No. One one's very focused woman. Yeah. I love it. Love it. Dr. Bishop, I just wanna go back to something that you said was quite interesting about like athletes going into stadiums, whatever it is, whether it's a rugby stadium, NFL, football, whatever it is.

So [00:38:00] do you think that during COVID, that when teams were playing in empty stadiums, they don't have that same experience as they would if the stadium's full and they've got 50, 60, 70, 80,000, however many people cheering them on. Do you think that may have been one of the re reasons? We had some, what we would probably call unusual results or unexpected results in team sports through that COVID experience where people were playing team sports again, where they had to play in an empty stadia.

Absolutely. I talked with athletes and we saw also reports on television, and they were all experiencing this unusual feeling when they're, they were playing. It was not the same feeling. And we are going back to the energy levels that the stadium brings to the gladiators in to the athletes playing.

It has a humongous role. It has a huge role on the mentality [00:39:00] of the motivation for the athletes when they, it's something brilliant happens. They come to see you and when you, as the player, as an athlete train hard when no one sees you, it's your. You come there to show your, what you have worked, and then to come there and to not show that, but just it's play in the backyard.

They just use this words. Some of the athletes I've talked to, they just use the same words. It was nothing like we did, it was just like we played alone in the backyard and no one was watching. No one it knew and we did our own thing and that was it. And then we said goodbye and then we left.

But that's, and difference. I've gotta say I've gotta agree with that, right? I have to agree with that because when I was at school, when I was a young man, okay, I was actually the fastest runner in the school at the time, and they always used to put me into the 100 meters, [00:40:00] 400 meters, never the 1500.

But then they'd put me always last at the baton. And the adrenaline buzz that I had from coming back from losing to winning right, was phenomenal, right? It's just, I can't, I can always remember it. Also, I can hear the shouting in my ears when coming down to the finish line, and you don't forget it, right?

You don't forget it. It was, it's quite incredible. So I understand, I totally get the adrenaline rushes that you'll get and winning. The sports athletes are not athletes for one other reason. They want to win. Male or female want to win, there's a will and that inner desire look, as an author, I've always said that the best writings I've ever done is straight from the heart because my heart explodes and it affects me.

It's cathartic, it all comes out. My first book was all about that, and I said, there's no point writing if you don't have purpose. These guys would go, these guys, whether they're running, swimming, a triathlon or whatever it might be, fact is [00:41:00] they're winning. I met sports aid. I met a very, a young man who wanted to, who would've been in the England rugby team.

He had a car accident. Somebody wrote, run him over, and he said. I am not going to give up rugby. And he became the most successful disabled rugby player in the uk. I met him, I had the privilege to actually meet him. His lovely, his mindset and his determination. His tenacity, right? You've got to I tell you, why can't we have that in the business world with people?

Not, instead of saying, how much are you gonna pay me? Before you go to the interview, why don't you actually sit through the interview and then tell them how you are gonna add value and how your determination, your passion, and your tenacity for what you are doing is gonna change the world, right?

Because these athletes are all about that. Yeah. I'm sorry. I want to be number one. I'm gonna change the world. And their mindset, we're back to what Dr. Beatrice said earlier [00:42:00] about mindset. And I say mindset is everything. Mindsets. First I want to go add there exactly what you said. Why in this business and when team managers look for employees, they need to look with the same mindset and the same determination and the same energy levels and why they want to do that.

Yeah. And there's just really easy trial to triage to make. Yes. When you find the motivation and you have the specific questions, why do you want it? What's important for you? Yeah. And you can decide, and you cannot lose that so much time with other questions you need. Like in medicine, like in mitochondrial level, you go to the basic, and then when you find your community, when you find your so called tribe, then that's when the magic happens because you are only have determinated people, tenacious people, like as you and you surround yourself.

Between three and five [00:43:00] and se seven people with the same strong mindset. There won't be anyone who will tell you in that group, oh, you do too much. Why are we working until 7:00 PM There's gonna be, and I, when I was in corporate and I did a, I, I was CEO Global, C-M-O-C-C-O, I had a, I had an ethos.

I was always first in the building last to leave, right? As I built this emotional intelligence and the vision, the mission, the values, and I brought that into the organization, you suddenly start seeing people turning up the work the same time as. And leaving the same time, they wouldn't leave their desk.

They were there committed to the project. They weren't gonna just leave their colleagues. And 'cause you build that whole openness together and together we're winning as one, not as individuals. Yes. And okay. And this was very much about winning. And we did win. I took that business, that one European business, I took that business from 8 million to [00:44:00] 250 million in two and a half years.

I then took the other organization to the first, their first billion in revenue. But I applied the same techniques, the same methodology. Now I'm not saying all of those techniques would work today, but I know from experience that a lot of those techniques with people first would work. I think the techniques might change 'cause we've changed.

But the principles that drive those techniques, the principles Correct. The guiding principles. No, I agree. I'd say the same. Then we adapt the techniques to meet those principles. Totally. Just one question I wanna, when we're finishing because it's, again, it's about linking this to business, which is, and trust and leadership.

And I'll go back to what you were saying about, and it really is when you talk to people in sport, they're so clear about what that, why they're doing what they're doing. They are so clear. That gives them the ability to focus, prioritize and say, I think there was something, isn't it the British rowing team, I think it was team one of the Olympics.

They were said and they got criticized 'cause they weren't they didn't [00:45:00] attend one of the ceremonies where it was the opening or closing. I remember that. I do remember that. And they said, why didn't you attend? He said, attending that does not help us win the medal. That was complete laser focus. If it's not gonna help exactly goal, we're not wasting our time and our energy doing it, we'd be better suited.

Going through our race plan, doing this that time could be better suited to delivering our goals. That's laser focus. And you might say sometimes we might need a little bit, but, and again, when you talk about the science, I'm just gonna go back to then culture, which again, I think is a bit of the mindset.

Let's look at culture around these teams where you said you go to places, everyone who's, so you've got a team playing. So you were with the, was it the Georgia rugby team? A very successful rugby team in Europe. The best, the most successful underneath the Six Nations. Exactly. Journey. Yeah. The most. And knocking on the door and be one of the reasons we will probably in the next five, 10 years have promotion and demotion from the six nations because George R in [00:46:00] every Exactly.

To the people underneath. I agree. But that's a team of 15. So say the squad's, 23 players, it's not 23 players who actually are delivering that. So an organization might be your sales team or other people on the ground floor, but the whole. The whole structure around that has to be aligned. Like in, as you talk about the culture of the business, you delivered that result on the pitch, on that day, on that Saturday, whatever else.

It's absolutely. I had the privilege to when I first started in rugby, in world rugby and with rugby Romania, some years ago, I happened to be in the locker room treating athlete. And I was there hearing, they had a meeting after the break. They were losing, Romania was losing. I don't remember who they were playing.

We, we were abroad, we were someone in Europe. And I remember the coach back then said to the players, I don't care who you are, what you have, problems in your house. [00:47:00] You leave them in this locker, and when you go outside on the on the stadium, you have no mother, no father, no. Tomorrow, no.

Present, no, nothing. You just play to win. And that that made me reflect many years. And I was happy to see that because also in my job as a medical doctor, I have no boundaries. I don't think of my private, sector, when I'm working, I'm so laser focused. I'm so ruthless. And then I saw this parallel between me and the sports, the athletes, what they do on the field.

And that I liked it very much because it put it into words what I do. And sometimes I think to myself maybe I'm too much into my work. Too much there. And then I just saw it's not about too much. It's about laser focus and doing what you really want. And that's it's nowhere to go until success.

It's it's nothing less than success, a successful road, in my opinion, if you're ruthless with your [00:48:00] focus. And I wanted to add that. I think there's a saying there. I love my quotes as well. I've heard it. I says where focus goes, energy flows. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah I'd like to add, I think it's important.

When I was in banking, I was a very passionate, driven, smart banker which is a very unusual combination because in those days, bankers were deemed as incredibly boring and very in the box and structured. And I was always outta the box thinking when I was a banker. But we did incredible things when I was in, when I had a corporate career globally and internationally.

And bearing in mind I've worked across 121 countries. I'm very driven. I'm very laser focused as you described. And I do understand some of the pain points. Everyone says they're busy and I would always question busy doing what? When we started, what got me was, I've got a very curious mind and super intelligent mind.

I've got a million things going on in my mind, or 24 7. In fact, when I go to reiki, my reiki masters [00:49:00] always saying, God, and I still, I've got real problems with this. Your powerhouse is just too much, right? Because it never calms down. But the bottom line was, bottom line is always is, look.

Productivity's down. I put I in business and I want to talk about business and I'll come back to sports, but we've still got this big problem in leadership. We've got the wrong people in the wrong royals. It's no longer about staying with the program and getting your bonus and then leaving. 'cause shareholders require more.

They require change. We know that whether we look at McKinsey, PWC, Bain, Oliver, Wiley, the reports speak for themselves. 84% of our leaders can just stand still and stand still as far as I'm concerned. Is quicksand okay? Transformation. 70% of all transformations fail at billions and billions of dollars.

Let's not talk about toxic or NA environments in, in, in corporations, because that's even [00:50:00]worse. We've got about 6% of the global market of chief executive officers that can actually influence culture. Pivot, creativity, innovation, and actually grow their talent acquisition to bigger, better, bolder, and stronger performances.

Now, this is something I am very passionate about and I keep going back to the question we have to business reinvent. There's no point training the same stuff to the same people that have an inability to action or execute. We, everyone's great at words. I've ne I don't, anybody that knows me knows that I execute.

I'm about action. I get things done. And the problem you've got is we can't no longer just keep talking. We've gotta start executing. And there's an awful lot of chief executive officers, male and female, that are getting paid lots of money and they're not delivering a thing. And so I think that [00:51:00] radically has got to change.

I think we're in an era right now where we're going back to human era, but we're going back to a new human era, and I think the new human era of leadership is about a new leader, okay? With new experiences, new traits, the ability to upskill their people, make their people far more intelligent, and to actually start transforming and pivoting within business has to be a mandate for every executive board to make that they should be succession planning, where people do not have the skills they need to step aside that this new leadership that I talk about in the CEO role and the C-suite role, because end of the day it's top down culture can only come from the board top down and not the other way around.

Culture is a glue. You can talk about culture of innovation, culture of risk, culture of finance, culture [00:52:00] of, product innovation whatever it might be. Yes, we know we've got a serious contention with a very long list of things that need to be done on a daily basis. But with the right leader, we can start executing that list and you can start making business improvements.

You can start actually creating growth. You can start actually inspiring people. Stephen Covey wrote a book called Trust and Inspire, probably one of the best books that I've read in a long time. But he talks all about why it's important that you've got skills and competencies, builds into credibility and integrity, and your people need to see that you are a true leader.

A true leader doesn't just talk a true leader. Change, and we've been very bad at actually not making the changes that are needed. No wonder we've got a productivity hole of 8.8 trillion globally and internationally, [00:53:00] right? We have got an engagement problem because people can't hide anymore, right? You can't hide your insecurities.

You can't hide your lack of skills. Look, when I became a chief executive officer of a large business for the very first time, I didn't have all the answers. I didn't have all the skills. I'll tell you what I did have. I had great people around me. I had a great team with me on the same journey. The teamwork, and I made it collaborative.

I wasn't insecure about my position. I was like what you gonna do to me? Fire me. Carry on. If you wanna fire me, right? I don't care. But I was building a business. I was taking that business from 8 million to 250 million in just under two and a half years after the launch. That's a big ask. I did it.

Why did I do it? Because I had the culture, because I had the people and because I got competence and skill behind the business. Transformation. No more, no less. We've gotta get rid of these insecurities. You've gotta get rid of this nasty kind of toxic environment. The ego. The ego, [00:54:00] right? The ego's gotta change.

Look, these are, should be basic one oh ones, but they're not lovely, unfortunately. And then there's no re no wonder why we've got a communication problem with people and why we can't have a human first. Because, people are afraid to actually speak out. I've always said somebody put their hands up at the back of the room.

Excuse me sir. Madam, please step this way. You've probably got something good to say. Why don't you join in with this executive group and why don't you tell me what you are thinking? Because inclusion to me has always been important. I always had the open door office. As soon as one of my directors or one of my MDs would come in, I would down towards, irrespective of what was going on.

I wasn't door closed, looking at spreadsheets, wa waiting for my eyes to dis dissipate. I was getting on with my people and I was getting the engine moving. And it doesn't matter how many hours I de put I spent at the office. Yeah. And those days it was the office. And the fact is it was getting the job done.

The job done. These are basics, [00:55:00] but this is some of the problems we've got and it's got to change. Boards have gotta wake up. That culture matters. Strategy doesn't eat culture for breakfast, as Mr. Druck has said, right? It doesn't. It doesn't. And I think that means a change in personnel.

And I've never been afraid in a C-Suite position to make a change in personnel if it was right for the business and more importantly, right? For the shareholders. You've got to create collaboration. You've got to create interconnectedness. You've got to have everybody on the same page. Vision, mission, values, tone of voice, personality trait, right?

That has to run through as a common language and philosophy within the organization. You gotta eat it, speak it, and breathe it, not talk about it, right? And just put it on a C drive and hope it works. It doesn't work on a C drive, it doesn't work on email. People don't read emails. Okay. [00:56:00] People want the human experience.

I've got clear research that proves that we need to start talking and interacting with our people. Okay? If we want a future short-termism, forget it. We can create models, processes for immediacy. Yes, we've got to be building long range planning around mid midsize objectiveness and long term objectiveness.

If we're going to get to the end goal, and I'm sorry, but everyone's worried about their job. Sorry, we, nothing new, right? Let's start executing. Let's move from just basic discussion. Let's apply these new techniques, these innovations. Let's build culture of innovation.

Let's build trust with one another and each other. And let's change not just business, not just sports. Let's change societal for a better impact and for a better world.

I can't top that, so I'm gonna leave [00:57:00] you. That could be a great place to finish the old podcast. I think. I can't really top that. Next time we do a podcast, Jeff, I'll just introduce you and you can just run it and I'll just see that now at the, thank you very much. I thought I was being good today. I was being quiet.

Yeah, I know I was. I was relatively impressed by normal standards. So again, thank you very much for your time, Jeff and Dr. Beatrice. So I will add one more thing though. There's a quote of, I do wanna share this. Okay. Okay. Vince Lombardi, I love this and this, I know Beatrice will definitely have something to say about this.

Winning is not a something, sometime thing, it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while. You don't do things right once in a while. You do them all right all the time because winning is a habit, unfortunately. So I was losing. It is, I think, isn't it Jack Nicholson says, strangely enough, the more I practice the luckier I seem to get.

Lovely. I love it. Okay, so Dr. Beatriz, you now have, which is highly unusual with Jeff in the room, the [00:58:00] ability to have the last word. I love that he said he has so many ideas and some people might find that too much or too exhausting. I don't agree. I have also so many ideas, but when you collaborate with exactly a person who has the same creative brain as you, there won't be anyone who you will meet and say, you two are having too many ideas.

You will bond together, you'll connect together, and then you are gonna be unstoppable. That's what I think, and I, that's crucial to lead in business and innovations also. So it's about, we say that what did we learn from business and innovation, leadership and trust. And I think the key thing that's taken away from me is just understand the energy required and it's about that alignment and getting people together on the same page.

Exactly. And then feed off that energy that you can Yeah I won't say a word 'cause I don't want the last word. You just have, but [00:59:00] there we go. And here is lovely ladies and gentlemen end of the lesson. So again, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Scott.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Scott. Thank you. You are welcome.

Welcome to How Might We, the podcast that explores transformative ideas and strategies for leadership. In this episode, we delve into how leaders can cultivate impactful mindsets, featuring two exceptional guests: Geoff Hudson Searle, an international business leader, author, and keynote speaker with extensive global experience, and Oakland McCulloch, a retired Army officer with over 40 years of leadership expertise spanning combat, peacekeeping, and boardroom operations.

Together, they bring a wealth of insights into the power of trust, collaboration, and mindset in shaping leadership. From the challenges of modern communication to the erosion of institutional trust, this conversation examines practical ways to build connection, foster community, and lead with purpose in a rapidly changing world.

Get ready for an engaging discussion on the privilege of leadership, the importance of curiosity and care, and actionable strategies to create meaningful impact in organisations and beyond. Let’s dive in!

Scott: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome back to the latest edition of how might we, and this edition, we're talking about how might we impact leadership mindset and joining me are Jeff Hudson Searle and Oakland McCulloch. I know you've been on some of the other episodes, both of these people have been on before, so it's going to be an interesting discussion.

But for those who don't know you gentlemen, if you'd like to introduce yourselves to the audience and who would like to go first.

Oakland: Oh, please. I'm glad to be back. Thanks, Scott. And thanks, Jeff, for inviting me to come back. I live here in the United States. I retired from the army after 23 years on active duty.

You got over 40 years of leadership experience in combat, peacekeeping operations, disaster relief operations, and in the boardroom. And now I'm just a keynote speaker. I go around and talk about leadership and success. And as we talk about a lot, Jeff, trust. Absolutely. [00:01:00] I'd

Geoff: like

Oakland: to know

Geoff: though, you're an international keynote speaker these days, aren't you?

That's right. Right. Just

Scott: in front of that. Okay. It lets yourself down. You're not just a keynote speaker. You

Geoff: are international. Yes. It's like

Scott: a man of wisdom. Right. And Jeff.

Geoff: I'm myself. Yeah ex banker city bank head of commercial finance. That's where I started really my career and actually my, my formal education, really anything else 10 years around the world, launching fortune, 100 bands, C suite executive and CEO of both.

Public and privately listed companies. International. Sorry, international. Very international. I've worked in over 121 countries in the world. I'm also an independent non executive director and chair of Remco. I've been doing that for the last 17 years. in my independent capacity. I'm currently on the executive board of two companies, one a metaverse company out of Australia, London and also one an AI sustainability [00:02:00] business which is very much based on Europe, UK, and also in MENA.

I'm also an author of seven books and this family movie Discussion really highlights is going. I hope we'll highlight some of the important issues around, you know, collaboration, community, partnership and very much, you know, trust and what we do today.

Scott: Okay. Welcome gents. So, and you didn't say you're an author as well.

Oakland: Yeah. Yeah, I am. I've got one book out. I'm not as good as Jeff, but I got one out. You are? Talks about leadership and you know, and one of the things I always tell people is, You know, I don't mention theory at all in my book or in my talks. I talk about everyday things that everyday leaders can do to help improve their leadership ability and empower the people they have the privilege to lead.

And it is a privilege to be the leader. And unfortunately as Jeff and I have talked about several times, it's too many leaders today have [00:03:00] forgotten that it's a privilege to be the leader and you see the results.

Scott: Okay, well, you've got one more book than me, so I'm on zero, so you're okay. No books. I keep getting told I should write one, but I haven't got around to it.

Okay, so before we came on here, we were talking, I think the word that came out that interested me quite a lot was community, sort of leadership through community and what that means globally. And obviously, We'll be talking about all the elections that are happening in 2024, and they're all settled down now, so during 2024 into 2025, the results of those elections are going to become apparent and the new governments are coming into shape.

So how does that sort of pan into what we're talking about, the impacts of leadership and mindset? Yeah. So, I mean, let me kick this off. Oak and I were having lunch recently and we, we did talk about this and I think it's an incredibly important subject. Firstly, it's like, you know, when I start to think about community, I start to think about events that come through the [00:04:00] calendar.

Geoff: So we can always talk about Christmas, we can always talk about Thanksgiving, and we start talking about You know what community is. I mean, with that is a set of values, right? You know, if you look at Thanksgiving in the U. S. for instance, you start to talk about gratitude. Well, gratitude shouldn't be reserved just for Thanksgiving.

It should be something that's actually provided, given, and shared throughout the whole calendar year. Where we're failing in, in certain areas is our inability to be able to embrace community, embrace collaboration, embrace, embrace ideas, sharing. ideas, sharing, sharing perspectives and, and doing that in a meaningful way.

You know, the, the erosion of trust in, you know, is a big subject. And, you know, I've, as you know, I've been studying that now for the best part of 30 years, but what I'm finding with trust, it's just getting worse and worse without actually starting to build it. Even in a small way, we [00:05:00] start to actually build community, which then has got an impact.

You know, there are a lot of moving parts when I start talking about this, but you know, community is something that, you know, what Oak said earlier, you know, it's a privilege to lead. Well, to me, it's a privilege and an honor. And also I, I, I feel the same about my friends. I feel still the same about, you know, my close associates.

My business associates and and the people that I share with. It's an honor and a privilege to actually work with people with integrity and and we have to start looking. I mean, I don't know what you think about that. But for me, I think we need to get back to that community matters and it matters. It's not a soft subject.

But if we can start getting community right, we can start getting societal right, and therefore we can start sharing with one another in the physical 5D and not treat each other, you know, in a transactional way, which I feel that we are [00:06:00] doing an awful lot, where life is too transactional, and it's not about the human experience and community and the good things that can actually come from actually setting precedence over something like a community.

Oakland: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think the part of the problem is that we don't have that conversation. Because we have gotten that we all have something in common you know, whether it's our morality, our values, our culture, whatever it is, but, you know, one of the things I always talk about is that the problem is, is that we concentrate on the things that we have different.

instead of the things we have in common. And if you, if you start with what you have different, you're never going to get to what you have in common because arguments, disagreements, whatever. If we start with what we have in common and we work our way out to the things that we have different, then maybe we [00:07:00] can, at least we're never going to get everybody on the exact same sheet of music.

That's not going to happen, but you can at least then make compromises based on what you have in common that maybe will benefit. The majority of the people can I ask you a question?

Geoff: Can I ask you a question about that? Because I'm really fascinated whether you actually think, you know, fundamentally, it's how we communicate.

I mean, we don't have to argue, do we? Because actually, we should be able to talk to one another.

Oakland: Well, I think that the key is the definition of argument. If you go back to, you know, the founding fathers of America, they said that we have to have arguments. That that is different than having quarrels, you know, I guess, you know, debate, argument, whatever, however you want to define that community demands that we have those debates and those arguments about the things [00:08:00] that that are going to affect all of us, and we got to do that in a civil way and I don't see that happening.

Is

Geoff: technology, is technology still that blocker do you think where we're not actually. You know, as I said, we're not in the human experience of being able to communicate, collaborate and be more of the community from a communication point of view. I mean, I, I would say I'm quite a good yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm not a hundred percent, but I would tell I'm, I'm quite a good communicator.

You know, I'm, I'm very proactive, but you know, there's a lot of people that don't even return messages. They don't, they don't respond. They believe that, you know, technology is kind of the only way that they want to operate. Send me an email and I'll decide whether I want to respond to that, you know. And Carl Honor he wrote the book In the Praise of Slow.

And he's kind of the part of the slow movement. And he's all about, we've got to spend more time with one another. I mean, [00:09:00] you know, people can pass on this earth plane without people even knowing about it if you don't communicate with people and and look when you start to look at we're not too far away from Christmas, you know, people are in isolation.

People don't have anybody to talk to. People are lonely. All this does is bring in mental stress and. And, and depression into their lives. And if we were to be able to communicate more as a community, we can actually bring some, bring some, I'm going to use the word, I'm going to bring some love to these people, right?

Joy, happiness, because end of the day, isn't that what the community is supposed to be? We're not on the earth thing just to pay bills, right? We're supposed to be, share one another and, and be a part of something, right? I've always said that I, I've always wanted to be a part of greatness, right? And the greatness.

It doesn't have to be, you know, 6 billion corporation. It can actually just be working together to achieve certain goals. And and with that, but embracing community, [00:10:00] embracing communication as part of that process.

Oakland: Well, you know, it's funny that you bring that up because my wife just put a blog out on her sub stack just last week or this week, maybe the beginning of this week.

Talking about that exact same thing, you know, and she called it building in wiggle room. And we, and she has for years been an advocate of that, of keep, you know, leave 10 minutes early before you got to go somewhere because you never know who you're going to meet in the elevator or in the hallway or in the garage or in the wherever.

And it might be somebody who needs to talk to you today, needs somebody to talk to. And, and, and, you know, right now with the suicide rates and all that, especially in the veterans community, I say, you know, you never know you stopping and listening to somebody may have actually saved somebody's life today.

A hundred percent. Yeah. And, and, and, but even if it isn't that dramatic, [00:11:00] You can just tell there's sometimes that people just need to talk, and we need, we need to slow down and listen and build that community because like you said, being a part of greatness, It isn't about you, it's about everybody.

It's about

Geoff: everybody. Absolutely. I mean, I go into my local coffee shop, and, you know, and, and people look at me, and they think I'm weird because I'm talking to the barrister who's making the coffee, right? And we're laughing and we're having, we're sharing a few things before I go to get my train, right?

But it's like, surely that is, like, the local coffee shop is the community place.

Oakland: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so simple things that, that we got to get back to, you know, I, I was talking to a businessman here in, in Daytona and he, He has about 250 people in his company, and he was, he was telling me that none of them know each other.

Yeah. He said they know each other's names because they send texts and email and call each other. But, but if one walked down the hall and [00:12:00] stood in front of their desk, they'd never even know who it was. And I said, well, there is a way to fix that. I said, a couple of ways. One, start having some, some company get togethers, meaningful ones, like, you know, calling out people and recognizing people who have done good things, you know?

And, but I said, a simple way to do it is just have a, a no email, no phone call, no text message inside the building on Friday. If you want to go talk to Jeff, you got to get out of your seat, go find Jeff and go talk to him. And he tried it. And he said, amazing. He said within a month, people were stopping in the, in the hallway, talking to each other.

I love it. It's really all that simple. It's just getting us away, getting us away from these things. Yeah.

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah.

Oakland: I

Geoff: mean, Lisa, Lisa Petro who's the Harvard professor, she, she wrote a book called Sleeping with your smartphone. Great, great and phenomenal. Her first case [00:13:00] study in deploying her strategy was with BCG, Boston Consulting Group and she proved that she could, she could make increase performance by 25 percent by using the smartphone less and actually having one to one conversations, not just in the office.

but also inter office communication as well. And she proved it. It was a, it was a great case study.

Oakland: No, I absolutely agree. I mean, we got to get back to that person on person communication, you know, I, and, and I, I, I use that a lot when, when I was a recruiter for army ROTC here at the local university. I, I always tried to get.

The family, the young man or the young woman in the family in my office, if I could get them in my office and I could be one on one face to face. Very seldom did I, did I not get that person to

Geoff: forgive me for saying, but I'm a Green Bay Packers fan, right? I'm sorry everyone. Right. I am, but you know, the Packers have got [00:14:00] Green Bay has got a community and everything, the children come down, the, you know, the wives come down and every, and you know, the families are together and they're one, you know, and they have when they win, they have doughnut free doughnuts and everybody has free coffee and everything is together.

That's community. Yeah. That's community. You know, in, in certain cities you can walk down the road and you can't even ask anybody directions to the light. It's a muggy. Right.

Yeah.

Geoff: Thanks. Yeah. It's sad. It's very sad. Yeah.

Scott: I think, and I don't know where this is. I read it. I've read the book, but I can't remember the stats, but there's a book called how full is your bucket.

It says that when we do something good for somebody, we feed ourselves and we feed the other person. When we do something negative to somebody, we take away from them and we take away from us at the same time. Being, being not so nice to people, but they say there's 20, 000 interactions a day 20, 000 that we have as human beings with other people.

I mean, this is a while ago, this is pre COVID, so I don't know if it's changed because we're less, we're [00:15:00] communicating less, as you say, something like working remotely and hybrid working and stuff. But even if you're walking down the corridor and you just smile at somebody. Right. Rather than just ignoring them.

It's that trigger,

Geoff: Scott. It's that trigger. Just that. That if you smile, you'll generally get a smile back because it's a mirror. And they may

Oakland: even stop and talk to you. Yeah, that's right.

Geoff: Oh, no, don't

Scott: want to do that. That's why they don't do it. It's like that. I know. I think I talked about this authenticity and stuff.

And I play, as you guys know, I play a lot around with language and stuff and about how we can, as long as we use it authentically language is really powerful.

Yeah.

Scott: And it's just adding the word really onto some sentences because we say, how are you? We don't really, it's socially accepted. Hello. It's not socially accepted.

We want the person to actually tell us they're having a crap day. Exactly. Just a polite. But if you then as a leader, just change to say, how are you really? Yeah.

Oakland: Well, yeah, I had a boss who retired a three star general. And when I first went and worked for him, we'd [00:16:00] walk past each other in the hallway and I was a captain.

He was a Lieutenant Colonel at that time. So, but he, he would, he, he, like one of the first days he said, Oh, how are you? And I said, fine. And I kept walking and he said, no, no, no. Come here. How are you? I want to know how you are. And he was asking me questions about my family, about my kids, you know just to get to know me, but he, he wouldn't accept that.

You just said fine and moved on. He actually wanted to know. And, and that stuck with me and I used that throughout my entire career. And you, you'd be surprised. How much difference that makes in, in the community of where you work. I, I back to people know that you actually care. You actually

Geoff: do. Yeah. I, I think that's the key.

You care and you, you, you, you know, I used to use another and another saying, kill, kill that negative, toxic discussion with kindness . Yeah. Right. Now I go back to what Scott said earlier because [00:17:00] he said that open, authentic, when you have an open, authentic human experience. The whole persona changes, right?

It, it might take you a little while and that's the point. It takes effort to create that and the environment to create that. But once you've created that, you have got a truthful Okay. Exchange of words, which creates sentiment, right. Which creates understanding. Okay. Well, I know it sounds silly, but to communicate should be one of the easiest things that we can do.

Right. Yeah, but we're not doing enough of it

Scott: and I think I'll take it back to what I said about understanding what we mean when we have talked about arguments and or debate however you phrase it. So for me, when we have arguments, we're trying to beat the other person when we're having a debate, we're trying to understand.

And I think that's chat with you

critical. I agree. From

Scott: a position of curiosity, not from a position of winning. And I think if we then add curiosity with care as a

Geoff: leadership. [00:18:00] Right. But to have a curious mind is to have a different mindset and to look at things on a segue into the title A different lens.

Yeah.

Oakland: Yeah. Cur well, and, and isn't that the, isn't that the key is to have that, that curiosity mindset that you wanna. Even if you disagree with somebody about something, I want, I want to know why you think the way you think. And you might, you might actually convince me, you know, going back to the debate piece, you, you might actually convince me, or at least you might move me a little bit toward your, your way, even if I don't agree 100%, or I might move you my way.

I mean, but, but unless you have that debate with an open mind, you're never going to get

Scott: there. I don't even mind if I don't move you, you don't move me, but at least I understand where you're coming from. So that gives me an understanding of you. It's important to you start to understand what's important to people and then once you get past that which goes on to that concept of principled negotiation.

Once you understand what's important for people, then we try to find [00:19:00] common solutions that mirror our values. I still go

Geoff: back to that curious mindset again because and what, what you said earlier about it's a privilege to be a leader. Right. I, I believe it's a privilege and an honor. Right. People also, you know, that are followers of leaders need a curious mindset.

They need a mindset that is out of the box in terms of thinking, if you're going to get the best out of your people, the challenges, no, I mean, challenges in a good way, the thought process provokes communication and dialogue, open dialogue, so that you can bring that kind of vision, mission, values, personality trait tone of voice, culture, it builds a culture, which, you know, if you can engage within a culture, then [00:20:00] you've got, you're addressing things like psychological self safety, wellness.

The human centered design piece in the workplace, and you've got more followers because that that high growth scenario that I'm describing is all about embracing change, embracing transformation, wanting to work with people to achieve things right and and community spirit for a better word. Wanting to do drinks, wanting to have coffee, wanting, wanting to have lunch together and, and, and to communicate and collaborate together.

What we're seeing now in meetings is that people don't just do meetings just on spec anymore. It has to be meaningful. If you've got a curious mind and you're challenging and you're thought provoking, you're going to create that curiosity and you're going to create that meaningful communication is what I'm trying to describe.

Oakland: Yeah. Well, I think, I think that part of the problem that we have today is. Because what you're describing, a [00:21:00] leader has to have an open mind, let people open debate, even against what you might think is the right way. You got to be able to put your ego aside. And look, we all have an ego. Anybody who tells you they don't have an ego is lying to you.

And we want people to have an ego because that's what drives you to be successful. That's what drives people to be the best at whatever they do. But good leaders, know when to put that ego aside and allow their team to express their opinion, their, their views, their needs. And then that's when you can make those compromises and say, okay, yeah, for the betterment of the team.

Cause that's what it's allowed. is the team will make this compromise. It is. I want it. It may not be exactly what you want, but it's in the middle where we can all live with it.

Geoff: That sounds a little bit strange. What I'm about to describe, but there was there was a record that was actually done for charity.

And I think it's, we are the [00:22:00] world. We are the world. And he got like all the famous musicians, artists. I mean, really, the really big guys together, all together in something like 30 hours to record a record. They never met each other. They got an easy and they're singing together. Michael Jackson was exit, but there was one thing when I watched the documentary, there was one sign on the door before they went into the studio, leave the ego behind you.

Right. And that was the one reason he got all of those answers to perform together. And to create one of a successful song, which went to number one, but also, more importantly, created money for the benefit. And you could argue that was community.

Oakland: Yeah, I agree. But, but you can't do it if, if the leader, if the leader and the people on the team can't put their ego aside for the betterment, [00:23:00] betterment of the team.

Scott: So it comes back, there's a book by Adam Grant called Give and Take, and he talks about the people who give without expectations of return. So I'm gonna do something because it's just, it's just the right thing to do, it's just being kind. And it can be simple. I love that book by the way, I've got it on my shelf.

It's a really good book. And I think one of the suggestions he has in it is really good, he said like, Obviously, we do now know that you gentlemen work internationally. That's been, that was at the beginning. So you work across time zones. So if you're meeting somebody and you know, they're in a different time zone, one of the give and take things he talks about is just telling them what their time zone is going to be.

Yeah. Okay. So

Scott: three o'clock in the UK, which is going to be this time you're I'm doing something to help them. Doesn't really help me find out. And those type of, again, I think a lot of this could be very small steps that we can take that can have a huge impact on even say really to somebody or say, Oh, by accepting find as an answer and asking those questions, it is an investment of time [00:24:00] on our part.

to deliver that because we have to go and find the time zones out or we have to give that person five minutes to listen to them and stuff. So we do have to invest time, which is one of the big reasons that when I talk to people about and leaders about this, but I don't have time. I don't have time, which comes back to make time.

Yeah. Slow down to speed up.

Oakland: Always slow.

Scott: Yeah. Always.

Oakland: Yeah. Because you, you have time for what's important to you. I mean, that excuse, I don't have time. I don't ever buy that. You have used your time in some other way, which may not be as important as what we're talking about. So you, you, again, it's mindset shift that, okay, I got to figure out where my priorities are.

What's important. What's really important. And that's where I'm going to. set aside some time to do that. Because, yeah, you're right. I mean, it really is that simple. And it's those simple little things that you do that start that ball rolling, that then can make a [00:25:00] big difference.

Geoff: Those tiny steps that you talk about.

builds trust. It's, it's small, there's small tiny steps that builds credibility all the way through. It's a part of the process. Actually, you could argue and say, actually, what you're doing is you're, you're, you're being an active listener. Okay. Really? Actually, I do believe in empathy and I do believe in compassion.

Okay. I understand you, which then I think builds on to how you communicate. And ultimately, that builds into a level of trust and purpose within the relationship.

Scott: I think the thing is these, these small things go back to that 20, 000 interactions that every single one will build a reputation for you as a leader.

positive. Very few of them are going to be neutral. There are going to be positive or negative. And I think it's those small steps we can do. But the key thing is the consistency of doing them. We can't just turn on off you guys. You say, there you go. We've got to, there are times when you've got to say, no, I'm right.

I'm the boss. This [00:26:00] has to happen. Absolutely. No, absolutely.

Oakland: Yeah.

Scott: But there are other times of being aware of it and say, right now, we've got time because we're not in a crisis because this isn't happening. I value your input. Let's go. Yeah. But not accepting fine as an answer is something you can consistently do every time you meet somebody who says fine.

And it won't take long before people say, I can't say fine to this person. They're not going to accept it. I'm going to, I'm actually going to have this conversation with them.

Geoff: I agree. My, my old boss used a very good analogy. He said, look when I go home to see my wife, I tell her I'm going to buy flowers.

She responds, don't, don't tell me again, you're going to buy me flowers. Buy me flowers,

Scott: you know, actions and words. So, and the key thing is, I think I was watching a YouTube clip of Stephen Covey, Mark Covey about he was talking about trust and he said to accelerate trust, you tell people why you're going to do something, you tell them what you're going to do and you deliver on those promises.[00:27:00]

Yeah, you set the expectations, but the why is important, which comes back to that mindset. Which means we've got to be also open and transparent. I hadn't said leadership isn't about or I can't trust them. I can't talk to him. I can't tell them stuff. We have to tell people stuff. I believe

Geoff: we live in a very complex environment, a very fast world that is about the treadmill, geopolitical, complex issues.

regulatory issues, economic issues. It doesn't matter which way we look. And the question I sort of said I would like to stimulate is if it doesn't come from the place of truth. What's the point where you're wasting your time if what you're saying to somebody isn't Isn't based on the truth. It's based on false deceptions and lies with short terms and no one can win Well, that's the point if we're as a society Can start actually being more open more transparent [00:28:00] more authentic We're going to be more engaging to others and we're actually going to do great things together because we're coming from a place You That we all recognize that's trusted.

Scott: I think you just look at the, now, somebody will say something and somebody says, that's just fake news. And they're just like, oh, fake news, fake news. This is that. And we, there's, so there, we, even as you say, at the political time, we don't have debate anymore. Somebody just said, yeah, that's just, it's politicized.

They're trying to do something. And the, the, nobody actually tries to uncover, you know what, let's just sit down and have a conversation. I think politics, political leaders aren't helping the situation.

Geoff: Isn't it the old days that we always looked up to government as, as, you know as a benchmark and, and, you know, businesses would measure, would measure, you know dictatorship as a model of operating a model of working now, now business, you know, like we all seem to be lost islands because we don't have anybody to look [00:29:00] up to.

Even, even in sport, we don't have those ambassadors that are true ambassadors. To what we do, you know, so I think what we have is small groups of people that are doing their best, their best against, against a tsunami of various distractions and various interactions to, to provide good and to spread the word and to, to provide that authenticity and that model of working.

But actually that's also disparaging when you think about it. You know, because we used to have, we used to look up to government, we'd look up to business and, and we would model that in the right way. But there are very few governments, business leaders in the world today that you could you could actually attribute that to one.

And two, a lot of those leaders are making very unquestionable decisions about things that do affect our lives. Yeah. I think, you [00:30:00] know, I think you hit it right on the head, Scott. I think it's the consistency and the transparency. So I think part of the reason that we don't have trust here in America, we don't trust anything.

Oakland: I mean, we don't trust our government. We don't trust the department of justice, the election, you name it. We don't trust it. And I think a lot of that is because of the lack of transparency of what You know, we don't know what it does and why it makes its decisions and it wouldn't be that hard to make it transparent.

So, so that begs the question, why isn't it transparent? Which then leads to the lack of trust. And so I think we gotta, we gotta work on that. If, if we want to make this world better, we gotta, we gotta fix the trust piece. Because you're exactly right, Scott. We don't, we don't. you know, somebody puts up that the first thing that comes to your mind is, well, that's not true.

That's against

Scott: what I believe is not true. And I think there is an opportunity though, because [00:31:00] of the institution, the erosion of trust in institutions, the opportunity of individuals or leaders is to actually say, well, we can trust has been decentralized. It's a way from, It's moving away to more. And that's why social media, I think, and people, you've got influencers and stuff that there is opportunities for individuals to have a bigger influence around trust.

And Jeff, as you were saying, go with that and have that and actually say, do you know what I can make more of an impact now, possibly than I could have done before of things like social media and tech is it's causing us some problems without a shadow of a doubt, but it's providing, it's providing opportunities for individuals to have a much bigger voice input.

presence, influence and presence you've had before. And you just look at, again, you can look at what's happened around the world. And last year you can see individual 100 percent rising and having a huge influence. Yeah. It's going on. So there are some opportunities, I think, for people to actually cut through it all and build that reputation of trust because people will generally say, you know, this [00:32:00]person has been open and honest.

It's transparent. I know where they're coming from. But

Geoff: you are right when you think the word consistency, you know, is really what everyone's looking for being consistent in the words in the what you say in your actions, you know, and, and if you want to build. Around that, it can only, it has to be consistent.

It's a tone of voice, it's a personality trait, it's, it's, you know, mind. It's, it's everything you do in life, you're measured by, you know, your last response, really, when you think about it.

Oakland: Yeah, my wife, my wife used to say, you know, when she, she was in charge in the nurse. When she was a nurse and in charge of the floor or the ER or whatever, she always said that her, she would tell her people that your first response can never be, no, it's well, let's look at that.

And then [00:33:00] let's actually look at it. And I may have to tell you, no, but that's not going to be my first response. And nor will that be your first response to somebody who asked for something. And that that's again, the consistency of. Let's, let's, let's debate it. Let's talk about it. Let's figure out, like Scott said, what, what is, what is your interest?

What is it that you're trying to do? And is that an interest for the whole community or is it just you being selfish?

Geoff: I've got something here. You know, there's a, there's a very interesting quote. You may have heard it. People say people may forget what you said, but they never forget how you make you feel.

Oakland: Absolutely.

Geoff: Absolutely. And that, and that really goes back to the very core of what we've been discussing. When you think about it,

Scott: because, yeah, go ahead, Scott, and just say, I mean, that thing about having that consistent behavior of nervous, your first response isn't no, you can consistently do that or never accepting fine as an answer.

You can consistently do that. And they're [00:34:00] examples of how we can, what we do, but consistency in a never changing world. Where do we get the consistency if the world

Oakland: is changing? Yeah, well, I think it has to be morals and values. That's what the consistent is. Anytime you got to make a decision, you got to go back to your morals and your values, which, you know, in the end, it's culture.

You know, the core culture of your organization, go back to that and make decisions based on that. And I think you'll be okay. If we explain to people why we've decided as well, absolutely the why, you know, when I go around, talk to people, I say, look, when I was a young man. in the army as a lieutenant and somebody told me to do something as long as it wasn't immoral, illegal, unlawful.

I never asked the question, why? I just did it. I said, yep. Yes, sir. And I went and did it. This generation wants to know why, and there's nothing wrong with that. It just took a couple of [00:35:00] years for this old man to figure out that there's nothing wrong with it. But I have found out that if you can convince them of the why, They'll do anything you want.

Geoff: I I look at the boards of directors and I look at what you've just said about morals and values. And I'd also, I look at the word I, you know, ethics, and I've also built ethic ethics committees on boards as well. And the importance of that, because when you're, when you think about corporate governance, everyone says the word corporate governance, but, and they might have a term of reference, which they, they basically want to apply themselves on.

But actually actions, the actions behavior is really how, you know, no big surprises if you don't enforce that in, in a, not enforce, but regulate that within a culture. Within a culture. Okay. How do you expect your senior management teams and your leadership teams to actually behave if you're, if you're acting irresponsibly and and corporate governance again, it's not once a month because you've got a board meeting.

[00:36:00] Corporate governance is 365 days a year, 24 seven. Okay. And, and, and again, it's if you look at really what trust is, Okay. Trust is an output of our behavior. But if you look at how we're behaving as a society and within societal behavior needs to change and, and, you know, communication, I think is a massive part on.

You know, on how we shouldn't we shouldn't have to. I mean, look, if you think about ESG, if you think about sustainability and all these other, actually, we shouldn't have to have a regular trees or jail frameworks around all of these things, because if we if our behavior was correct. We wouldn't need them.

We've got, we've got enforceable regulations because we're not complying to behaving in a certain said way. So, if we can fix behavior, we can fix [00:37:00] trust, we can fix collaboration, and we can deal with the why. Well, you know, I think you hit it right on the head there, Jeff. And, you know, so many companies and organizations have their defined culture or their values, and it's on the wall, so everybody can read it.

Oakland: That isn't a culture and that isn't values. You have to instill those things and enforce those things and encourage that type of behavior on a daily basis, not just put some words on a wall and say, that's my culture. That's my values. That's worthless. Absolutely. It makes them all look nice.

Scott: That's pretty much, I think there's two things here that I mean, is one of the things about behaviors is like, Jeff, change your behavior is great or encourage people to change behavior because we can't make anybody do anything. All we can do is influence people to make choices. Yeah. I agree with that. I agree.

Oakland: I agree with the [00:38:00] influencing factor. Yeah. And a way to do that, Scott, is with that consistent behavior. That's how you influence people. But I think also looking at behavior is, it's, it's, I can't remember, I'll say it, but I'll have to give credit to a giant guy called John Capel who's I've worked with who showed me this model and his situation plus attitude equals behavior.

Scott: So when we're looking at changing and encouraging people to change behavior, we've either got to look at the situation, can it change? If that can't change, what's my attitude towards the situation? And then those two combined will create a behavioral shift. So I think what we're talking about really is the attitude change.

We're in a business to make money. We're in a business to be sustainable. Okay. What's our attitude towards what success looks like? What's our attitude towards what's the priorities that we need to deliver as leaders. And if we can just shift that little bit, which again, it goes back to what we're saying in the beginning about the mindset.

Geoff: Right. Absolutely. Everything is mindset. If you look at Audrey Hepburn, who I think was one of the most successful female, female [00:39:00] actresses in Hollywood, she always said impossible. Well, actually that means I'm possible. And that was all about mindset. If you look at the successful NFL man coaches and managers in the game, it's all mindset.

That's the difference between the ice ball of getting getting a play and a win in minus 35 degrees of cold weather or losing the game.

Scott: Yeah, Colin Montgomery. I remember as a golfer when I was a kid, it was the world. Yeah,

Geoff: I remember Montgomery. Yeah.

Scott: I won a major. And it's the, and they say it's just, and it's just in sport.

And. Elite sport is not just about your talent. A lot of it is about how you approach things and, and psychological.

Oakland: Absolutely.

Geoff: Absolutely. Although I'm, I used to play tennis and I haven't played for a while, but I, I could be 40 love down. I could still win the game.

Oakland: Well, I, I think, you know, and, and that, that kind of reminds me of the [00:40:00] famous Henry Ford quote, you know, he said, he said, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

Yeah. I love that. It's all about your mindset.

Scott: Slightly, I mean, yes. And I think one of the key things for these, goes back to what you were saying, is one of the questions I talk a lot about these is, and they say, When you hear I can't do that, you say that's fine. Okay, so what can you do? Just that one question when people say that.

Geoff: Well, I would like to say that Henry Ford also said the plane takes off against the wind, but it still takes off.

Scott: Yeah. Are we just going, are we, this is the, are we going to end this on who's got the deepest quote? Are we going to restrict ourselves to a country or a person? I think one of the best quotes for culture, it goes back to a lot of what we're talking about.

A culture is defined by the worst behavior management allow.

Oakland: Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Scott: What we say is acceptable, but either not challenging.

Geoff: I would like to say that I think that when we start talking about [00:41:00] mindset, there is a paradigm shift that needs to take place in all leadership because leaders and how they behave and how they act has a direct influence, as we've already discussed, on the people.

And the reason why we've got so many disconnects is because we don't have the privileged and honored leaders that are, have followers, and more importantly, have direct reports that believe. And we've got probably one of the worst employee engagement. track records in commercial business. We've got probably the worst productivity hole I've ever seen in my life.

8. 8 trillion, 11 percent GDP. As I said before, that's more than Amazon, Apple and Google's turnover all put together. There are some horrific statistics from a research perspective that we can see. The one thing that [00:42:00] can change this is mindset. Right. And the question is whether our leaders of our Fortune 100s, FTSE 250, or even SMEs or startups, it doesn't matter.

It's, it's, it's always sitting with the chief exec or the founder. It's mindset. If we can change, if you have 10 things that are wrong, if we can change one of those aspects. We can affect change and we can affect transformation. Look, you can't bandaid some of these problems. You've actually got to start fixing these problems if we're going to make that societal paradigm shift that we all talked about during this conversation.

Scott: I think it's just that I'd like to put in. both from Gallup because I like Gallup because I do strength stuff. I am biased and I'll put that straight out there, but I do with this massively evidence based. According to them, 51 percent of people, it was either women or people in America are actively looking for new jobs, half the workforce.

And [00:43:00] the variation of employee engagement, 70 percent of variation of employees engagement is down to the leader. Yeah. I'd like to just give you another statistic when I did the trust report. Which is the IBM report that we carried out, 69 percent of everybody that was interviewed for that survey said, one, they did not believe in their chief executive officer.

Geoff: Or two, their line manager, 69%.

Oakland: Well, and I think that's the, all those things that you're talking about is, the reason for this great resignation that we we're seeing in the Western world is that people are fed up with it and 50, 51% of the American population's looking for the next job because they're tired of being treated the way they're being treated.

And it's all because, you know, in, in the Army we had this saying, and, and I, and I lived by it, and I did when I was in the army. In the civilian world, you know, [00:44:00] mission first, people always, okay, we got to finish the mission, whether you're a businessman, whatever, you got to make money. I got that. But if you, if that's the, the be all end all, and you don't take care of the people, you're not going to make money, or at least not as much as you could.

So you're not going to be a successful. So take care of the people and you'll be surprised what the, what the payoff in the end is. And we got to get, that's the mindset we got to have. It's a ripple effect. Is

Geoff: it, if you think about high growth versus low growth mindset, You can't compare toxic narcissism over here or collaboration and superior growth.

The companies that have affected a high growth organization, okay, have positivity, have engagement and have their performance numbers are second to none. I mean, I can look IBM, Uber Eats, you know, Ikea, all these companies adopt a high growth [00:45:00] Energetic approach to their employees, their engagement and their success stories on the other side

Oakland: that builds the trust and trust is the key.

But, but you know, I, I think that, you know, going back to what you said, Jeff, you might have 10 things wrong. And I think that a lot of businesses, a lot of leaders say, okay, I got to fix all 10 things. Well, you're not going to fix all 10 things, at least not right now. Pick one of them, fix it. And when that's fixed, go to the next one.

Go at it one at a time, a little bit at a time, because there's no way that you're going to get a buy in to fix 10 things with the people that you lead.

Geoff: What you're describing though is penetration. So if you, if you're able, rather than touching, you know, 10 things, pick that one, penetrate it and, and, and effectively performance manage it.

Because if you can fix that one silo, okay, you redesign it and continuous improvement [00:46:00] and you start on the second. So, you know, it's a process. It's a crisis. Absolutely. We're too much in a rush sometimes to try and fix everything and we end up actually fixing nothing. Really? When you think about it.

Scott: I think that's the silver bullet.

So although we say we do one thing that fixes everything, which is highly unlikely, it's a combination of stuff. But I'd, all I'd like to add to what you were saying is, and Jeff is fix the thing that's kind of the biggest impact first.

Yes.

Scott: The one that will influence, because there's certain things you'll look at that we talk about low hanging fruit and stuff.

But I say, what's the one that underpins others? So by fixing this, we're already starting to have an impact on the other ones. And then that's, you're looking for that connectivity of stuff. And so this, Yeah,

Geoff: but we're also in order to do that, we're looking for the right judgment call from the right set of leaders, because depending on who's actually going to review what that one Silo is that has the most impact may not be the one silo with the impact and [00:47:00] a lot of leaders will look at Their skills and what they believe they can do within the organization Rather than what's what's actually going to be good for the organization

Oakland: Doesn't that go back to the communication piece that if you got a lot of communication engagement If you got good communication with the people in your organization, they're going to tell you what the most important thing is You

Geoff: Yeah, correct.

But in all, not in all cases, do you get really good communicators at the top of the parade? Very seldom. That's, that's where it all falls down. Yeah.

Scott: I think what you were saying at the beginning as well is what we need to fix is it in my interest or isn't the greater interest of the community. And sometimes I say that, so yeah, this isn't my department, so we'll struggle a little bit longer, but if we do this, it's going to better the whole organization.

Yeah. Can we, can we sit ourselves, can we be more selfless?

Oakland: That's the key. It really is. As a leader, you've got to be selfless. You know, it, it isn't about you. It's about the people and the organization that you have the privilege to lead, [00:48:00] period. And we got to get back to that mindset. And I don't see a whole lot of that mindset out there today.

Geoff: No, I don't. I'm not seeing it. And as I said, I am seeing those a lot of leaders with some very unquestionable decisions that they're making, which is impacting the world in ways which I'm not necessarily sure is good for societal. It's good for everyone. And then there's another issue I'm seeing. I'm seeing globalization kind of fade.

In with the geopolitical piece just fading away I mean There are things that need to be addressed and we can I think we can only do that if we're communicating and talking together You know i'm sure there'll be a lot said at the world economic forum in davos Next year on the subject and more, but hopefully we've got the, we've got the leaders that will lead and we'll make better judgment, better decisions for each country so that we can actually start doing things in the right way.

Again, we'll see.

Scott: Okay. Well, on that note, that we're hopefully that [00:49:00] WBF, I don't mind them talking as long as I do something as well. Yeah, exactly. Goes back to what you said, like, yeah, just talk, talk, talk, but do something. Do something, yeah, exactly. Do something, because I think that's what people want. They just want some action.

Action. I

Geoff: want action. We all want action, right?

Scott: I might disagree with what you're doing, but if I understand why and I bought into the, and I understand the principles that are driving it, I will probably accept it and move with it. And if I don't, and if we don't communicate openly, all we do is leave a space for people to say, well, why, why are they, what are they hiding?

Yeah. This trust just, you're just feeding distrust that we know exists.

Oakland: I think our institutions can't exist the way they are right now. It can't. Society can't function with the way it is right now, with the trust level, the way it is right now.

Geoff: On boards of company, we've seen CPOs arrive, you know we now have the chief [00:50:00]trust officer being moved in to try and rebuild trust at board level.

For the organization. I'd like to see more of that. I think that if that's something we have to do and we have to have a trust framework within the organization to manage behavior and collaboration and and, you know, and so forth with certain frameworks, then so be it if that's what we have to do. But I would like to see that influence.

To grow that if I had a wish for 2025 that that would be probably not far from the top of my wish list because you know, I think that if we've got to do that, then let's then let's invest and do it right now. Let's not play at this subject. Let's not consider trust as a soft word. Actually, I can show you correlation straight to the bottom line as a direct result of mistrust within organizations.

So I think we need to embrace that within culture. We need to brace that within corporate governance in my, in my professional opinion. And, and, you know that's what I would like to see [00:51:00] happen going forward.

Scott: Okay. So we can do that. Can't we? It's new year coming up. Exactly. So what's your wish list for next year then?

So Jeff, you've said like taking trust and

Geoff: No, I'll just, I've got one more thing. Oak's coming over for the IBM. He's going to be the international speaker at our event. Next year? Yeah, June 26th. I'm very excited about Oak coming over. So yeah, he's going to be joined by Mr. Justin Crum, who's a UK Colonel, and I'm going to have them talking leadership and serpent leadership and community and And and and hopefully we're going to talk more about entrepreneurial leadership and mindset and and doing things.

So I'm very excited about that. So I just add that to my wish list. And that's good.

Scott: We're going to have a lieutenant and a lieutenant.

Yes, we are. Lieutenant and a Lieutenant. I'd like to add the colonel on the end. I

Geoff: will add I would stand in the middle [00:52:00] of

Scott: them.

Geoff: I would just stand in the middle. Yeah, exactly.

Scott: You say tomato. I say tomato, but there we go. So what would you like to say? One thing that you'd like to see next year? If we could.

Yeah,

Oakland: I think we got to. I would like to see leaders making decisions based on the good of the organization and the good of the people, not just themselves and not just business leaders, politicians, leaders at every level. And I, and again, I don't see that right now. It's like Jeff was saying, you know, questionable decisions.

If you look at it really close. It's probably in their best interest, not in the best interest of the organization or society or the country or whatever it is that they're leading. And we, so I would love to see leaders start making decisions based on the good of the people and the organization, not themselves.[00:53:00]

I think mine, I would love

Scott: leaders to be more curious with care. So curiosity and compassion. Yeah. Empathy. So just understanding. So on that note for our 2020, we can actually meet again in 2025 and says, did any of this actually happen? And then it doesn't actually happen. So I'd like

Geoff: you to diary this time, this date in your calendar, Scott,

Scott: the three of

Geoff: us can actually debate what actually did happen in 2025.

Yeah,

Scott: exactly. I just hope culture and people become much more central to how organizations work. As customers, clients, and the people who work in them, and not just about short term money, that would be quite a shift. Yeah, it would be. I'd say about what success looks like for us, and who we serve in it.

There we go. Okay, gents, it's as always been an absolute pleasure, and thank you very much Geoff, and thank you very much, Oak, for your time. And I might be there on the 22nd of June as well, so I might, I might 26th actually. You can be there on the 22nd

Geoff: if you like, but I mean, you know, I could probably be having some drinks [00:54:00] pre the event on the 22nd, but I could do that as well.

I could do that as well.

Scott: Yeah. I'm quite happy with that one, that's not fine. That's okay. I've written it down to the 26th in my little notebook here as well, so Obviously, it's landing at six o'clock this morning and still. Right again, so thank you very much, gents, for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure.

This episode I have three distinguished guests chatting about inclusivity and leadership.

My guests are Mark, Gary and Douglas - see below for more details about them

Mark Freed 

Mark Freed, a trailblazer in diversity and inclusion, co-founded E2W over two decades ago when he left a successful fintech career to become the type of husband and father that he always wanted to be.

Mark grew E2W to become a community with a reach of more than 15,000 women in Financial Services, aiding institutions with best-practice recruitment and retention of diverse talent.

Wishing to accelerate change, Men for Inclusion was born, and Mark shares his own lived experience as to why inclusion benefits all men, providing more opportunities and breaking free from outdated stereotypes.

Mark's distinctive voice is not just heard within this community. He’s a vocal advocate for workplace inclusivity, and recently provided evidence to the UK Government

Treasury Select Committee during their 'Sexism in the City' inquiry, and collaborates on initiatives like the Women in Finance Charter and the Diversity Project.

Mark brings a refreshing perspective to the industry, making him an engaging and

insightful commentator for journalists seeking a fresh take on diversity, allyship,

recruitment, and workplace culture.

Gary Ford

Gary Ford worked as a technologist within Financial Services for over 35 years. He was a Managing Director at JPMorgan where he co-founded their male allies programme for Women in Technology. The programme was rolled out to thousands of men globally and was ultimately launched across the whole firm.

For the last 10 years Gary has actively promoted gender equality. He’s been the male ally advisor to Women On The Wharf, and was a winner of the WeAreTheCity Rising Star award in the Men for Gender Balance category.

In 2020, he co-authored his first book,

'The Accidental Sexist: A Handbook for Men on Workplace Diversity and Inclusion’ (Rethink Press), showcasing his commitment to fostering inclusivity in workplaces.

Gary’s not just a co-founder; he's a driving force behind Men for Inclusion, bringing a wealth of experience and a passion for creating transformational culture change.

A compelling and knowledgeable industry commentator, Gary provides insights and data that will interest those fostering inclusive workplaces through DEI employee

engagement and inclusive leadership.

Douglas Lines

Douglas Lines is a digital first leader with a successful track record of growing and transforming businesses as well as innovating and commercialising new digital business models including successfully launching a global EdTech start-up amongst others. Douglas has been enabled by building a design thinking school in collaboration with Duke and Stanford Universities, appreciating the application of new technologies and having mastered business model innovation and cultural transformation practices.

Mark's LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-freed-3a496a6/

Gary's LinedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/garypford/

Douglas's LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaslines/

Men for inclusion website - menforinclusion.com

IBEM website - https://ib-em.com/

Transcript

Scott: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of how might we and I've got with me , this week, we've got Douglas, Gary and Mark, and we are going to discussing how might we create inclusive leadership, . And that's not just related to work, but leadership in general and communities, ourselves, our families and with us.

So welcome, gentlemen. How are we all today?

Mark: Great.

Scott: All good. Doing

Mark: good, doing good.

Scott: I'll give you a hint. We're audio. So nodding doesn't help. We are on audio. So the people need to listen to us, but there we go. Okay. So welcome gentlemen. So if we'd like to go in around Robin, just a quick introduction about yourselves.

And then we will start the discussion. So as we've had a quick chat, we'll do it in the same order as before. So Gary, would you like to go first? Yeah, thanks, Scott. Gary Ford [00:01:00] former technologist within the financial services industry previously a managing director at JPMorgan Chase author of a book, The Accidental Sexist, and the co founder of Men for Inclusion with Mark.

Okay. Thank you very much. And a nice segue into you, Mark, if you want to introduce yourself, please.

Mark: Hi. Yeah. Mark Freed. So joint founder of Ment for Inclusion with Gary. A long career in financial technology and Turned to become a passionate supporter of gender equality 25 years ago when I left Credit Suisse to set up a firm called E2W which has been at the forefront of promoting gender equality in financial services for the last 25 years.

Scott: Thank you. Welcome. And Douglas again, welcome back.

Douglas: Thank you, Scott. Always great to be back with you. And my name is Douglas Lyons. I am a financial services executive of 25 years experience having been at the helm of a large corporate bank and commercial bank. And [00:02:00] absolutely a people leader. I think over that span of that career, I have witnessed and learned a tremendous amount from, from all the teams I've been privileged to work with and the leaders I've been privileged to work with.

I am an international thought leader on a number of areas, an author of a book on innovation. I'm a subject matter expert in business model innovation. But I'm equally a thought leader around executive leadership and the skills and capabilities of executive leadership into the future. And again, that very important topic that you mentioned of both inclusion and trust.

I am a founder of RBEM Group Limited based in London, and I currently reside in London.

Scott: Okay. Welcome back, Douglas. I'm sure we'll have another interesting and fruitful discussion. So, Gary, the title of your book, Accidental Sexist. Tell us a little bit about it.

Gary: Yeah, sure. I mean so I guess that my kind of, you know, starting point for this [00:03:00] is whilst I was at JPMorgan, I started getting involved in kind of gender equality and diversity inclusion initiatives by being asked to sponsor women in technology, which was a gender group that JP Morgan set up to attract and retain more women in technology, a sector that traditionally struggles with gender and arguably still does.

And so I certainly found myself in a room with about 50 women. I was often the only man, a deeply uncomfortable experience, if I'm honest. And we were trying to explore why it was that women didn't want to work in tech. So I began to hear kind of additional barriers that women were facing, which up until that point had been completely invisible to me.

And I thought of myself as a decent leader. I was a managing director there. I had around 250 or 300 people working for me. I thought I knew how to do it yet. There was things happening that I was frankly not seeing. So and I thought if I'm not seeing it, I'm sure there's plenty of other men that, you know, equally blind to some of these additional challenges.[00:04:00]

So we set up a male allies program alongside a guy called Stephen Koch. So when I left JP Morgan, I kind of thought this male allies idea could be interesting to other, other people. So. The Accidental Sexist was born out of that. I met a woman called Dr. Jill Armstrong, who was our third collaborator in the book, and I think, Douglas, you may have had the same experience.

Like the, the writing a book, you know, as a, you know, as, as a group is a really, really rewarding experience. So and Jill brought a lot of academic research to that book. She, she'd done a three year research program onto gender equality, diversity, inclusion at Cambridge University. So the book's about kind of three things.

The first is this fact that women face additional barriers in the workplace. And actually women of color face, face them even more. Which echoed, you know, the, the female experience when I was at J. P. Morgan. But Generally speaking, the fact is that most of these barriers are kind of quite unintentional, right?

Most, [00:05:00] most managers, leaders in the workplace go into work. In fact, most colleagues in the workplace go into work most days and they want to do the right thing. But because we are brought up to think in very deeply gendered ways, these, these, these mistakes often get in the way. And it's not unlike unconscious bias.

We just think accidental sexism is a better reframing because We can learn from mistakes, right? And we can, you know, we can look to improve and, you know, when we make them, which even now Mark and I often call each other out when we make these mistakes, because you, you, you just do, you have to kind of recognize that if the intention is good, then we, we need to help people learn from them.

So that's the first part is really just identifying the fact that there's extra barriers. The second thing is about what Steven and I learned from trying to roll out a male allies program. There weren't a lot of. Kind of, you know obvious references at the time. And then the final half of it is like, you know, how all the kind of things we picked up from running that [00:06:00] program, but about the things, the practical things you can do, which actually became practical things I think you can do in any kind of, you know, leadership, discipline, how you hire, how you how you promote, how you develop people how you create an environment.

in which all team members can, you know, work to the best of their ability. So that's, that's the summary. Sorry, that's quite a long summary. I apologize for that, Scott, but hopefully you get the gist.

Scott: The gist and the gist. I did indeed. Okay. So obviously you now work with Mark. So Mark, how did that come about from what Gary was doing and how you guys hooked up?

Mark: Yeah, I think as I said my I, I left my last proper job, if you like, 25 years ago and set up a firm. We very quickly became really busy. passionate about, about gender equality and supporting and helping women to succeed and flourish in their careers. But five years ago, as we were coming into lockdown, et cetera, I was getting increasingly frustrated at the pace of change.

It was clear that Actually, we weren't moving [00:07:00] forward very quickly as a financial services industry. There were in many instances, fewer women in top quartile earning roles in the sector in many organizations than there were seven, 15, 20 years ago. So despite all of the effort, all of the, the pressure from regulators and shareholders and all of the commitments from firms, we weren't making progress.

And I kind of, I suddenly saw it would actually quite often when we're talking about this, or more often than not, actually, if we were talking gender I'd be the only guy in the room. I'd be the only man in the room. If we were, if we were talking race and ethnicity, I'd be the only white guy. If we were talking LGBT, I'd be the only straight guy.

And I said, actually, where, where are all the men? Because we can't do this if only half the world are invited. We need everyone in the room. And then I started seeing, actually, backlash. You know, a lot of men, and hearing, you know, [00:08:00] the, you know, this had all gone too far, and it was against them, and etc.,

etc. And I, and I began to think, actually, why aren't they seeing all the benefits that I'm seeing? Why aren't they grasping the idea of freeing themselves from outdated male stereotypes? Why aren't they seeing the benefits of inclusive leadership? Why aren't they seeing the benefits of diverse workplaces?

Why aren't they, and haven't they, answered the question, what's in it for me? And so with that in mind actually sort of met Gary quite quite by accident, actually. I did a male allies search on LinkedIn and he, he came up, he'd won an award. He'd written a book. I thought this is somebody we need to get to know.

And Interestingly, Gary and I although we, we, we might look the same, talk the same, et cetera we're very different characters we're very different people and working together, we've been able to bring our, our combined strengths to, [00:09:00] to the fore. Which I think is another thinking about, you know, we need to think about diverse thoughts.

And it's not always because you're a different gender or you come from a different background. Sometimes actually people are just different. And let's make sure everyone gets heard.

Scott: Okay, Doug, and this comes back to say that there's, there's, we've been talking before online, the journey you've come through in a sort of broader aspect of it, although what Mark just said about getting everyone's voice heard is obviously living in South Africa and going through the apartheid and then the changes after apartheid, a journey for more inclusivity rather than exclusivity.

Douglas: No, thanks, Scott. And you, you're right. You know, I was, I was a teenager. I was at school when, you know, the apartheid regime was in place and we, you know, I lived through that. And then I actually, you know, once apartheid was abolished with, you know, which was absolutely the right thing for the country, you know, I lived through a transformation of what was in essence, a rainbow nation.

You know, I I [00:10:00] remember, you know, this is a country steeped in, you know, segregation. Yeah. Yeah. And in the 1994 world cup, rugby world cup final, when we won it everybody in that country, it was amazing that evening, every single person, no matter what color you were, you were welcome in anybody's home for a drink, no matter who you were, no matter what color you were.

So. You know, when I, when Nelson Mandela walked out to the field and wore the Springbok jersey, he united a nation in one single moment. And I think, you know, I love using sport as an analogy. I think Sierra Coliseum is our current you know, captain of the Springboks has the exact same philosophy. And so you know, that, that taught me so much around just the role that we as leaders have in our communities and our families, in the businesses that we are privileged to lead and or influence.

That we can make a real difference. And, and so for me you know, it was at the time you don't realize it because you're young and you're going through your career, it's only when you get older and you get wiser that you start to connect the dots of [00:11:00] prolific these moments in your life were in terms of living through these.

And, you know, I think Gary mentioned when you author a book. It's, it's a, it's a true privilege because you get to work with a lot of, you know, folks. And I was privileged to work with 65 folks, most of them smarter than me, quite frankly. But for me, that was one of the greatest things was to listen to such divergent views of, of subject matter experts around the world.

And for all of us to challenge and debate and what we learned from each other was, was amazing. So this whole Journey of authoring a book on innovation, the number one thing that causes a lack of innovation in our world that we live in is what we call dominant industry logic. And what's the number one thing to challenge dominant industry logic is to get diverse views and perspectives.

And and so the world that we're moving into swiftly requires us as a, as a, as a, as a need to bring in. The voices of everybody and to participate because [00:12:00] that's where the, the creativity lies. And, and it's, it's a, you know, having been through a number of diversity programs and inclusion programs, the greatest innovations I've ever been privileged to be part of has been when we have brought in.

You know, the diverse voices of, of of, of, and diversity has got multiple lenses. But that to me has been an amazing journey. One, which holds me to the center of, I think what I stand for, what I believe in and the impact that we can have on others is, is substantial. We don't even realize it half the time.

Scott: I dunno, but the, the how valid this stat is. But I read somewhere, I can't remember, it was a article I was reading, but as a leader, you have more impact on somebody's mental health than the physician

sometimes. If you think about that and then say what, what responsibilities that give us as in leadership roles about realizing that the impact we have.[00:13:00]

Douglas: I can actually bring that to life in a, in a, in a real life example, Scott of staff member that I had, and this was a female lady of color and And she was in my world and I was responsible for her and clearly we had some challenges with her performance and my team came to me and I said, listen, they've had the performance reviews and they're looking to exit her and I said, well, hang on a minute before we go that route, have you taken the time to understand what the challenges this person is facing in their personal life?

And And I said, no, no, that's not our responsibility. I said, well, I actually think it is. You need to understand the whole person. And so I sent my team away and to go and understand that world that this person is living in. And when we did, We started to appreciate the harshness of the environment that she was going home to every single day.

And we got professional counselors to help her to, to, to manage that environment better. And it was the most amazing outcome to see the smile on her face when we helped her in her life. [00:14:00] That she could blossom and she be, she went from being a bottom perceived bottom performer to being a top performer.

And it was just a one degree move that you can make positive in your life for that person. And so that, you know, it reminds me of an analogy that says in life, we must light the flame in one's heart, not under your butt. And I think when you can do that, you can see the amazingness of every single individual.

And and, and, you know, you learn a tremendous amount from these instances and experiences in your life.

Mark: Douglas, I think you bring up a really good point there. And I think one of, one of my fears with when, when we talk about diversity is we immediately start putting people in boxes. You know, we start off by putting men in one box and women in another, and then, you know, then we, we.

We go to socioeconomic, we go to race, we go to sexuality, disability, and I think some of those are useful to a point, but [00:15:00] actually, at the end of the day, as leaders, we need to take the time to understand. everybody as individuals, as individual people. And I think one of the challenges as a leader is you've got this thing called affinity bias and we see it all the time.

As we ask leaders that we're working with, you know, how much of your social time are you distributing evenly? Yeah. Are you, you know, those formal social events, are they always One type of event at one type of time of the day, those informal ones, but also, you know, are there people, are there people in your team who you rarely talk to who you don't go into a month up to on a Monday morning and, and, and ask them how they are, or start talking about the football.

Who do you lunch with? Who do you have those water cooler moments with? Have you, are you spreading [00:16:00] your, your social capital evenly across your team to ensure that you, you really know everybody and as individuals not only their strengths, their weaknesses, the barriers, the challenges that they may be facing because they're not all like you and you can't read it from a diversity script.

Really, really interesting how people then start to think about getting to know people as individuals in their team.

Douglas: I think, Mark, I think you raised, sorry, Gary. It

Gary: wasn't me, you cut a crack on Douglas.

Douglas: I'll be I have to warn you guys, I'm like a Kenwood chef because I'm super, I can't stop when I get in a passionate topic like this, but I'll be, I'll try to be concise.

But, you know, I think there's, it comes back to something we were chatting about earlier around self awareness and. You know, in the life that we live now with the technology that we have around us, you know, how often do [00:17:00] we reflect on the fact when somebody walks past us and greets us and we on our our phones and we typing and whatsapping or whatever, and we just, we just acknowledge and we move on and you don't realize that was a missed opportunity just to have that social capital that you could build for 30 seconds.

And we miss those opportunities all the time because we're on this frenetic treadmill of life. And And I think it's the ability to slow down, to speed up is an art. Yeah. Lots

Scott: of people jumping in, so don't

get

Scott: me really

interested. Come

Gary: on! Yeah,

come on!

Scott: Go for it. Gary, you go first. Go

Gary: on. I was just going to say, we had a really interesting story from someone who attended one of our workshops last week.

And she talked about one of the things she started doing On a really regular basis of making sure that when she comes into the office, she says, good morning to everyone's access in the office. It sounds so basic, right? But she said, you know, most people just come in, they kind of [00:18:00] straight to the same desk.

And obviously, this was a place where they had a hot desk in, but still, everyone goes to the same desk and sits next to the same person every single day. And she said, by the simple act of a, Making sure I was saying good morning to lots of people or everyone that was there in the office and B, not sitting at the same desk every day, which meant that I had a whole opportunity to interact with someone who I hadn't ordinarily kind of spent time getting to know, was just such a positive difference.

And it's a positive difference to her as an individual. She's just, I felt so much better. As, as an individual, but secondly, the level of response I was getting from my colleagues was just absolutely, you know, inspiring for her, right? And it's, it's a very small, simple thing. But that's what being inclusive is.

It's acknowledging that people, you know, people are there, right? The number of people that, the number of managers and leaders who simply ignore their people when they come into work. I mean, it's, it's, it's astonishing to me. [00:19:00]

Scott: There's an interesting book, I think, well, I found it interesting called How Full Is Your Bucket?

Which was written, I'm not going to say the right guy's name because I always get it wrong. I think it's Tim Roth or Tim Rath. Co authored it, he's from Gallup. And he says, and then they talked about the, the requirement for us as people to have like social inclusion or social, social connections is a really huge part of us because we're social by nature as human beings.

We are social by nature, so creating those socials but every inter, we have thousands of interactions a day, micro interactions with people. And I think being aware of those micro interactions and sort of the impression that leaves. of us in other people, then reflect on their reput our reputation with them, which will then reflect on how they will respond to us.

So as an example, like Doug was saying, people on the phone and you say, good morning, they just look up, you can either say, well, that's ignorant or that person's that. Now I've labelled that person as ignorant, which is going to have an impact on how I speak to them again. So very, very few, if any of our interactions are [00:20:00] neutral, very few.

And I do think it's important that we, In leadership roles or even just outside is have that consistency of and that awareness of how we respond to people, how we are in situations and because that builds our reputation. One of the coaching questions asked me is if I went into your team and asked them to describe you, what three words would you like them to use?

And then what are you doing every day to support that? And it's just as you said, Gary, sometimes just simple things, just saying hello to people makes a massive difference. Makes a huge and subtle changes we can make

Gary: and just saying thank you a bit more to people and, and, and, and I think another sort of tip we heard from someone else and I really love this one, not just saying thank you for people for their hard work, like lots of leaders talk about, you know, they do a big thank you to their team and thanks for everyone's working so hard and actually flipping it and saying thanking people for [00:21:00] their expertise.

Not just thanking them for sort of turning up and sort of working long hours for whatever you're trying to achieve. Thanking them for the value that they bring to the organization. I just thought that was such a huge tip. Thank you for providing expertise. As opposed to thank you for simply working hard, again, really tiny, small thing, but can make such a difference as you say.

Scott: I think it goes back to something you said before, it's great having these tips and these tools. And I'll give you an example, we were doing some training once and somebody said, it's really good to like appreciate your staff and you've got to build a system. Think about how you can, and this guy then went back and said, right.

I'm creating thank you Thursday. So every Thursday, I thank my staff. I said, you've just completely blown. It's all we said. They're a process of saying thank you to people. Please do it more often. So,

Mark: so, so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, you're an absolute shit. Yeah. I love you [00:22:00] Thursday. And they just see all the stuff new.

Scott: It's Thursday. I'm going to get my thank you Thursday email. The actual impact of that behavioral change is minimum because there's no authenticity behind it. It's not authentic. It's not genuine. It's not, it's not steeped in anything of somebody actually hearing to care because they've systemized systemize it.

It loses its authenticity, loses impact.

There you go. I could do that.

Scott: Yeah, I probably could this. It goes back to your thank you as well. So I was talking to somebody, if you walk into a coffee shop and a barista makes you coffee, what do you say? Say thank you. Yeah. And then managers say, well, I don't thank my staff because they're getting paid for it.

I said, well, the barista is getting paid to make sure.

Mark: Yeah.

Scott: And you just thank this barista. You thank somebody holds a door open. You, we do generally thank lots. I said, why don't we just say thank you at work and doesn't have to be a big thing and a big, that is just that. Civility, isn't it? Civility, I think, sometimes has come out of work.

I was interested in a book called The [00:23:00] Trust Factor. And that's how we build trust. And a guy called Paul Zak done research like the impact of trust on the workplace and stuff. And he, he does a lot around the hormones it creates and sort of oxytonian and, and all that sort of stuff. And now he calls that like basically the trust hormone that we have.

And it could, it builds that connection as you were talking about, which is really important. And he said, but position of leadership can create. Higher levels of testosterone in people naturally, which then can create counterbalance. The tonin. Yeah. Yeah. Men and women.

Mark: Yeah. Do you think though, it's, it, it's, it, it it, it needs to, it needs to be further than just sort of a Hello and a thank you.

A hello is is the start you know. Hello, how are you? No, how are you? Really? Yeah. No. How was your weekend? Really? Thank you for doing that. How did you do it? What, what, what, what challenges did you get? How, you know, what was good about it? What I think [00:24:00] is, is otherwise we it's, it's just that American have a nice day missing you already.

Scott: Yeah,

Mark: yeah,

Scott: yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, I, I likely put in there is the word, the word really when delivered in a curious tone and authentically. Adds a lot of power to a very simple sentence.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Scott: If you said to somebody, how are you? We don't actually expect them to say, I'm having a crap day.

You don't want them to say that because it's just a cult, it's a cultural norm, social acceptable. Hello. Yeah. You said to somebody and you're walking down, down the, in the corridor at work or whatever, and you actually stopped as well. And I think that's a good indication, stop when you talk, don't have it on route because it means now focusing on you because you're more, you're the focus of my attention.

And so how are you really, that people say management say, I've got no time, said you've got five seconds.

Yeah,

Scott: you have five seconds because if that person just says I'm having a crap day now and [00:25:00]it goes back to what you're saying Douglas about the other, the we don't, I think the days when I remember I was at work and I said to somebody I'm having trouble because I think it was my daughter's not very well, something was going on and the manager said, I employ you, not your family.

And I mean, that was like in the 80s and stuff. So they're very, the two, the two were never seen as the same. And I still don't like the concept of work life balance. I heard the phrase work life integration, which I think is much, much better. I have life and work as part of it rather than seeing it as competing.

So I do think we've got that duty of care to people who are with us and say, do you know what, this person's having a crap day. What can we do to make it better? How can we support this person through whatever it is they're going through? But we can't do that. As you said at the beginning, unless we really start to know people.

Yeah. And another phrase I ask when I talk about influencing, and it goes a little bit deeper from when you say, what's in it for me, why would that person want to? If we can't answer that, we're struggling. But the only way to [00:26:00] answer that is to really try to understand motives and the situation somebody's in.

So if we can answer the question or try to answer the question ourselves, why would that person want to do what I would like them to do? Then we start shifting from our perception to theirs. You start trying to understand them at a much deeper level.

Douglas: I think Scott, the other thing that we, you know, is in our various capacities in life, whether it's personal or professional, is this, you know, environment of psychological safety and that people feel safe that they can have an authentic conversation with you, that you

are

Douglas: open to authentic conversation, that you will listen carefully, that you will pause and stop.

And And I think, you know, we don't know all the, the power of the subconscious, but we know the subconscious is powerful and people can sense that they can sense is this, is my boss being authentic or is he, as Mark said, just doing the good old American, you know, coffee and coffee rounds, you know, and, [00:27:00] and people can sense that they, they, they, they know that intuitively and hence they will be guarded if if they sense that.

So it's, you know, the art of also having sincerity, authenticity. Meaning having a meaningful conversation that has purpose to it. And actually, you know, when we talk about trust, trust is the ability to listen carefully. And, and I think I sit in a lot of meetings and, you know, people like to talk over each other and you just sit there and listen and you actually think, well, what are we actually really achieving here?

And it's that ability to listen deeply. To, to each other's vantage points and that's goes and whether it's you know, meeting somebody in the street for the first time and having an engagement with him or actually you know, having a formal meeting, probably one of the most humble. You know, experiences of my life was the day I left off to 20 years.

And I as Mark said, I did pride myself in going around every morning. And greeting and having a conversation with each and every one of my staff, [00:28:00] but my most junior staff member. Came to me knowing that I was leaving the organization and he opened up and he told me about his life and he told me about how on weekends, he would see homeless people.

He would care for them. He would take them to doctors. He would pay for their doctors. He would pay for groceries. He would buy them clothes. And he was the quietest chap. You know, I would never have ever assumed that that often as a character. So for someone who was the most junior staff member, I probably respected him the most because of.

What he stood for in his life and how he helped others and my only reflection was, you know, why did it take me, what environment did I create that he felt that he could only tell me that after being together for so long, knowing that I was leaving. And that was something that, you know, I also took a massive learning out of but it, you know, we must never underestimate.

The power of each human being, they have, we all have different stories. We all have different impacts in our life and it's the ability to, [00:29:00] to, to, to ask deeply refined questions and to listen carefully. That's when you build trust. That's when you build authenticity. That's when you can make a change in someone's life.

And I've certainly you know, experienced that as well. You know, I think there's a great book called half time, which talks about, you know, in the first half of our life, we look for success. In the second half of our life, we look for significance. I've come up with a third one that says we come up with a third realm of stewardship of saying, how do we pass on our knowledge, experience and wisdom to the next generation?

And I think that's also something that's, that's really powerful, the ability to pause and reflect. Is a really powerful tool that we don't use enough of in our lives.

Mark: Douglas, and, and, well, everybody, I'm just wondering, and thinking back over the last half an hour or so that we've, we've recorded here.

It's all very nice. It's all, it's all very empathetic, and let's be nice people, and, and, and what have you. [00:30:00] But if, if somebody was, who was perhaps more traditional in their views, or maybe have felt that diversity and inclusion hasn't been good for them, what would you do? as men and felt that they were now just being discriminated against and the old fashioned traditional ways were, were the best.

How do we appeal to them? How do we, how do we change their minds? How do we change their views? How do we get them on side?

Douglas: Mark, it's a great question and it's there's no easy answer, but I think just from some of my experiences, having been in fairly deep immersion emotional intelligence training with executive teams, both as a leader and as well as a participant what I've really experienced, and it's quite interesting, it's quite consistent actually, is that your typical alpha male leader, very strong, you know leader, Tends to be when, when you look at an emotionally contained environment and [00:31:00] you start looking at the, you know, this person sharing their life story, they hold some significant vulnerabilities, but they've been brought up to realize, to believe that they can't share these vulnerabilities.

And so you're certainly not going to achieve that in a corridor conversation or coffee session, but I think it's to appreciate that we are all vulnerable and that we are make our makeup is designed by who we are and the experiences around us, our upbringing, whatever it may be a bad event, a good event to me.

And it's to, you know, To start to have conversations that are meaningful with each other that allows us to start understanding, you know, if we can just make a one degree move positively in someone's mindset today, then hopefully that one degree manifests some 10 degrees in, in, in three months time.

So it's, it's, there's no short answer for it, but I think it's about coming back to this whole authentic, meaningful. purposeful conversations that we can have with each other. We, we look at, we look at this through a, it's a great [00:32:00] lens. We look at it through a slightly different lens as well. And we point out historically how women have freed themselves over the last 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, even a hundred years freed themselves from complying with outdated female stereotypes.

Mark: And. They're no longer tied to the kitchen sink by their apron strings, if you like. And through cutting those, through throwing off those old fashioned stereotypes, they've given themselves a whole bunch of amazing choices and opportunities, such different outcomes from their mothers and their grandmothers.

And, and, you know, they're now in, in, in. Their lives are much richer, much more opportunity, much better outcomes for them than the men. As men, have we made as much progress? [00:33:00] You know, is my life very much different from my father's? A little bit, you know, a little bit in the fact that I was allowed to go into, I'm 60, I was allowed to, when my children were born 30 years ago, I was at least allowed into the, the, the, the maternity ward.

My father wasn't allowed in the hospital, and my son is going to get some paternity leave. That, that's small progress. And, and I think a lot of, a lot of those alpha male leaders that you're talking about are actually still living and constrained by living in that 1950s, 1960s, 1970s worlds. You know, guys, get rid of it.

Take the straight jacket off. Let, let's, let, let's, let's. Decide what, you know, what the definition of a man or let's throw that definition away and recognize that, you know, as human beings, we've got a lot more choice and opportunity. To be the real [00:34:00] type of people we want to be, and that changes mindsets.

So,

Scott: no, it's okay. I think, again, the question goes back to what Doug said, one of the key ways of changing somebody's mindset is to ask a really deep, powerful question. Then it becomes a self awareness journey. And one of the things I think about the trust model I've created right at the center of it is purpose.

And it's like, not, it's just like, what's the person you want to be? And what's, what's the things you want to achieve? And then how do you build trust around that to deliver that? And I think that's an important question. We don't ask ourselves very much at all is what's the legacy I would like to leave.

What would I like to be known for? And I think one of the questions I'll ask is if you were to win an award, what would it be for and who would nominate you? So that really helps. Yeah. About who do I want to serve? I think if we can start changing that with things about leaders, managing and doing stuff and more like serving, it kind of helps shift how we then perceive what [00:35:00] our role is, and then might shift about how we actually deliver that new definition of success or however we define success is what we tend to work towards.

So if we can help. Try to redefine what success looks like in leadership roles and whatever else it is. And then we can define that and we can look at the language we use around it and levels of awareness and language and our action. We can consistently, and I think the key word here is consistency, because when you do something consistency, you build trust in that what you're doing.

Inconsistency builds mistrust because we don't, we don't know what's coming. We don't know what's driving it. We don't know. We start to question the motives of somebody's actions. Yeah, I think dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. And Scott, do you think I mean, I see a lot of men now who perhaps retiring from their careers and looking back on them and they're thinking, well, yeah, I was, I was successful, but Could have I been more successful?

Mark: Did I leave carnage [00:36:00] behind me? Did I, did I really treat everybody fairly and equally? And did I get the best out of everybody? But also looking back at maybe the, I'm not going to use the word carnage, but actually the very different personal life they could have had, you know do they, by dedicating so much Mindset to career.

Have they really got the relationship with their children, with their wives that they would have really liked? Yeah. You know, maybe they put their kids through, through private school and they all went to, to a great university, but the fact that they never called their dad and haven't got a relationship with them is really important.

Scott: And I do. I think it's about question. What we see is success, isn't it? It's what we define as a success. Do we measure it by materialistic things? What I can provide to people. Yeah. Like family and friends and stuff, or is it measure it by what I can help people achieve serve people. So if we can just start working around some of those questions [00:37:00] and then asking people to go on that journey, because you can never make anybody do anything.

So it's all about trying to correct us. That's what you're saying about psychological safety. And there's a book called the four stages of psychological safety. I can't remember who wrote it, so I do apologize to the author. But the stage one is inclusion, because if we don't include it, then we don't feel safe.

It's a question. We don't see it was safe to challenge. We don't see it. So there's like the inclusion. There's something there's four stages and last one is the stage of challenge. But we need to feel safe to do that. And so huge. I think some ways also, if you want somebody, if you would like somebody to change, instead of just saying, Oh, it's about mindset, maybe provides a set of basic skills, come back to what you were saying at the beginning.

That you think, well, this is going to have a really positive impact on this person quite short term, quite quickly. So they can taste the fruit of success. Then once they know that there's a difference and actually these things I didn't think were working, if I just apply this one, two, three things, I can actually start to really quickly [00:38:00] feel a difference and an improvement.

Then you've got a level of momentum and they can actually feel what's in it for me. Why would I want to? Cause actually I quite like that. So I want more of it and why does it work? So I think providing really simple tools and maybe not worry too much about the theory behind it and why we should be doing it, but say, just do this and see what happens.

Then things start changing and then you can, they might say, well, why is it changing? And then you can do maybe the learning on top, because it's against the experience, understanding, and then it can create a new experience. So maybe just flipping it around a little bit.

Gary: I think there's another element to that, Scott, which is interesting going way back to something you said probably 10, 15 minutes ago now, which is, you know, when you suggest to a leader that they need to spend more time with their team saying, well, I don't have time to do that.

Right. And, you know time is a precious commodity. So therefore, how leaders prioritize time is a really interesting question, isn't it? And [00:39:00] frankly, I think if you and I think, you know, Doug, you were making the same point. If you look at the current landscape for business, it's an incredibly complex one, and one where you do need a lot of very diverse voices to enable us to solve some really tricky, complex problems.

And therefore, those diverse voices will not step forward if you haven't created the environment where they'd be listened to. So, I think for a leader, this is You know, you take it all of the personal cake. This is just basic business sense to me. Right? We have to find ways which will allow people to kind of have a voice to want to be part of finding solutions for some very complex problems.

And if we're not doing that, we're failing as leaders. You know, every time someone loses leaves our company, that's 100, 000 worth of recruitment fees. We've probably got to pay. It's also a massive, you know, loss of [00:40:00] investment that we've made into that. This is basic business sense in my eyes. So therefore, leaders need to be prioritizing, using their time to understand the people that they do have within their organization.

And to your point, You don't need to have the grand theory behind it. It just strikes me that there's some basic business sense around investing your time in trying to get to know those people. And actually, a lot of this is experimentation. I mean, you know, even what we do at Men for Inclusion, the type of workshops we run, I think there's a level of experimentation with it.

I can't promise you hand on heart if you do this thing, you know, your business profits are going to go up. I can't make that direct. Connection. But I do say, look, if you start working with people in this slightly different way, I think you'll begin to see through some very practical examples, the type of response you begin to get from the people in your team, right?

And maybe it doesn't translate to the bottom line immediately, but over [00:41:00] time, You know, all the research will show you that happier, more engaged people in your, in your business will translate into better products, happier customers, you know, better returns, happier shareholders, happier, you know audit committees, the whole nine yards, but it does require a series of very small repeated interventions.

Scott: And I think it's partly, I mean, I come from an Ops background and quite often Ops are pressurized. It's about delivering this today. This is the target you've got to get this done, this done, this done. And so the managers are driven. And even the whole rhetoric is around quotas, daily, weekly, monthly quotas.

So as organizations, you're putting a lot of pressure on your managers to say, yeah, it's great. I've had this, this is a thing that's been going on for years because you can talk about the ability to have coaching style conversations. I just don't have time. It's an investment. It's an investment of time that will repay his dividends.

But then we're talking about trying to influence [00:42:00] people's behavior. I think there's three things to consider. One is the immediacy of the outcome. Two, is it positive or negative? Three, is it definite or possible? So if we're looking at a possible negative, positive outcome, that's not very immediate, batting on very low influencing.

wicket. It's a quite sticky wicket to back it on. So it's trying to find ways of having that conversation. It's not trying to get people to give up smoking. There's a pretty negative outcome, but it's a long time in the future. It's not definite. So when you've got those three things, that sort of quota, you're saying, so again, how do we try to change the rhetoric around it to say, how can we get a more immediate response, positive response?

And we know it's not because we're talking about mindship. We're talking about attitude and we're talking about this. And then how's it going to be positive for them? So why would they want to? So I think sometimes just [00:43:00] changing that we can actually start helping people perceive because people do things for two reasons they want to achieve or avoid.

So we want to try and influence people we need to try and work out what is it they're trying to achieve or what they're trying to avoid and how can what we're asking them to do help deliver or avoid.

Douglas: Scott, I think maybe, you know I love connecting the dots from various lenses. And so there's a couple of things percolating right now.

One of them was around, you know, where do we look at professional executive teams, you know, where do they spend their time and You know, when we authored the book with 65 amazing people around the world on innovation, we really defined it on three horizon thinking. Horizon one says we run the core business.

Horizon two says we transform the core business and horizon three says we innovate brand new businesses. And it was actually McKinsey's that did a global survey and said actually 86 percent of executive teams focus solely on run the business. So we have a fundamental problem around transformation and innovation.[00:44:00]

Globally, 14 percent of executive teams are managing that portfolio on that basis. And, and so it comes, you know, what reflects in my mind was this thing of time and time. The other side of that paradox is what you were mentioning. Those three items is called, I sum them up. I call them instant gratification.

So what I mean by that, if I've got an app, that's a new app, and if it doesn't give me some instant gratification, it goes off my phone quite quickly. And we have been, technology is changing the way, the speed at which we have to work, the pressures on us, but as well as our own mindsets around gratification and, you know, this desire.

And I always say to people, the greatest thing we're fighting for right now, Is actually people's time, whether we look at marketing and how marketing agencies are evolving, et cetera, et cetera, we are trying to get into people's time and their mind to engage. And it comes back to this this busyness of running and we know executive teams.

Why do executive [00:45:00] teams run the core business only? Well, the incentive is 12 months cycle. You know, incentivize. So that's what they do. And do they have time to take what is a perceived underperformer, invest in them, turn them around? You know, not all of them do that, you know, so for me, it's, You, the more you can appreciate the investment in people, profitability is the outcome of that.

Many years ago, I was tasked with turning around a program which spanned 22, million of our customers, and it was failing horribly, it was, it was a collaboration program and a big financial services organization across the various silos, which you can imagine that size is, is, is siloed. We, it was never about me.

It was about, you know, empowering the team and actually saying, we're going to stop everything we do. And we're going to totally do this differently and empower a team and allow them to co create with the people on the ground. And it took us four years, but everything we did, we focused [00:46:00] on our people. We focused on giving them a supportive coaching environment, having coaches or coaches in the localized offices.

And most importantly, empowering them to make decisions on the ground. And the outcome of that was actually by pure default. The turnover went from 14 billion to 18 billion. And it wasn't anything special that we did. We just empower them. And so the model, this hierarchical pyramid leadership model is actually needs to be inverted in that it is actually we are there as leaders, whether it be in our community, our families or business.

We are there to serve. Others and to unlock the greatness in them. And you know, one of the things I'm, I'm super passionate about is, is is, is leadership development. And I designed it with a couple of us. We, we really scour the web in terms of looking to say, you know, what do we think the future skills and attributes of a, of an executive team on?

And there wasn't anything that was was that resonated with us. So we developed one [00:47:00] and we sent it to 65 CEOs and chairman's around the world for commentary. And we galvanized a set of patterns. Very detailed patterns in that, that we felt with all the input that was co created, what was really pleasing was that this futuristic set of patterns, at least 50 percent of it was around people.

And the influence that you have on people and these were very detailed patterns. And so for me, I think, you know, that is the, that's the blueprint. That's the blueprint on our personal lives, you know as well as our professional lives and the impact that you can have on others. But again, I think what happens is that we all get so busy.

We tend to let this by the wayside and we forget about it. There's a wonderful book that's I use when, when I've been blessed to coach some executives is called Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. And it's a true story of a, a Austrian psychologist who was Jewish at the time of World War II, and he had the choice of either going to America, [00:48:00] To become very successful or to go and join his grandparents in, in Auschwitz and the concentration camp, and he chose to go to Auschwitz and it was horrific as, as you can imagine.

And he wrote this book in memory of his grandparents, but also for the learnings that came out of it. And the key learning that came out of it was you can take everything away from me. You can take my clothes. You can take my right to food. You can do everything. But the one thing that no one can take away.

Is the love that you have for another human being. And I think for me, it is such a powerful realization that whenever we face difficulties in life, as we just always lean on that fact, that no matter how hard things get and how tough it is, you can unlock greatness through those deep interpersonal relationships and the love that you have for each other and the care that you have for each other unlocks amazing greatness and every business success I've ever been privileged to be part of.

has never been about one individual. It's about unlocking the greatness within each other. [00:49:00]And the belief, you know, is it is what creates that, that self confidence,

Scott: the collective wisdom,

the perceived wisdom. So, and we need that environment. So that's quite a powerful story to nearly. And so I think as, as to, to finish on I do love that, that you can never take away that hope's a powerful thing as well. Hope. It's a really powerful driver of human behavior and what we can do. So on sort of finishing this, this, this, this podcast, I would like to say thank you very much for all three of you for contributing to it.

It's been very insightful. So if you could sum it up in, 'cause members how might we, is the question. So we a question. So how might we, we would like to go first. I start being back at school. This isn't, it's like the end of it is like the end of term test. How might we construct? Shall I go first? Shall I try?

Mark: Shall I go for it? [00:50:00] Yep. And I'm going to put another thing on we're going to give it, try see if we can do it in 30 seconds each as well. 30 seconds to a minute each.

I think I'll do that. I think I'll do it in, I'll beat that. I'm a competitive, I'm a competitive male. Diversity and inclusion is your opportunity as well.

There's a better life, better career, better health, better relationships, better friendships, more opportunity and choice. Go free yourself.

Scott: Okay, good. That's put Gary looks pensive and thoughtful. Now you can't see this because I don't put this in any audio, but trust me, I could be, I could be one of these commentators on TMS.

I should do. They describe the test.

Gary: Scott. Yeah. How am I, how might we create inclusive leaders? I mean, I, I think it's fundamentally, we've got to have conversation. I mean, I think, you know, everyone made this point. We've got to listen. We need to listen more. We need to listen better. And [00:51:00] we need to understand that all of us have a unique set of capabilities and unique set of insights.

We are all bringing something amazing to whatever kind of shared endeavor we're trying to achieve. And I think our role as leaders is to find the ways of unlocking that. And to Mark's point, because actually it makes us better too.

Scott: So that's that comes back to that book, helpful is your bucket when you're actually have a positive interaction, you feel somebody else's bucket up and your own when you're negative you empty theirs and your own.

So it's psychologically damaging to ourselves to do this. Okay, thank you very much. Doug, you're not really going to beat your last one, are you?

Douglas: No, no, I think that's a hard one. Gary and Mark had really strong finishes there. So it's for me you know, in terms of inclusive leadership, it's, it's powerful.

It's being vision led, values driven in one's life, people centered. and to light the [00:52:00] flame in someone's heart is the most rewarding thing you will ever achieve. And it will uplift you, not only them, and it becomes positively contagious. And that's when you achieve amazing things.

Scott: Okay. Thank you very much, Jens.

I really can't, you can tell that he's got authors in this room and then there's me. Very much more industrially in my communication style.

You've done a great job, Scott. I don't think I could have navigated as well as you, so thank you. Oh, you're welcome. You

Mark: have the voice. You have the voice, Scott. You have the voice.

Yes,

Scott: I do. I do. Mine would be quite simple as a leader. The thing is, just be curious with care. Be curious with care. I think if you're curious, I think it's a catalyst for so many different things. Somebody asked me, what's that? I said, that's one thing I would develop as a leader is the ability, is my personal curiosity about myself and those around me.

I think it's important. Okay. So it was always just me today. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you very much for your time. It's been an amazing conversation. And [00:53:00] yes. All the details for how to contact the three guests will be on the

on the page. So just read it, connect with them. If anything, you want to find out more about what they do, the amazing work they do with leadership around the world to help us have a more inclusive workplace and world.

Don't we need it? And that's the climate we've got today. So thank you very much, gentlemen.

My guests this episode are Geoff Hudson Searle, Douglas Lines and Oakland McCulloch. During the podcast we discuss focus in leadership, trust, psychological safety amongst other topics.

Corporate leaders today are measured by a new yardstick. The supreme test of a CEO and board of directors is now the value they create not just for shareholders, but for all stakeholders.

The shift to stakeholder capitalism creates pressure for corporate leaders to try to satisfy a wide range of constituencies with different, sometimes conflicting interests and perspectives. Earning their trust is key to navigating this tricky terrain.

Research shows that trust is the key to success. Yet growing distrust, cynicism and misinformation are eroding confidence in corporate impact and Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) claims.

To prosper in the age of stakeholder capitalism, companies must actively cultivate the trust of employees, investors, customers, regulators and corporate partners: developing strategies to understand these stakeholders more intimately, implementing deliberate trust-building actions, tracking their efforts over time, and communicating openly and effectively with key stakeholder groups.

We have entered the trust era: a time where (mis)information is omnipresent, individual perceptions reign supreme, and digital security and data privacy are constantly threatened. Now more than ever, stakeholders expect organizations to do the right things and do them well. These expectations range from entrusting an organization to safeguard one’s private data to requiring a company to have a strong stance on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.

Trust also drives performance. When stakeholders trust an organization, their behaviors will reflect that trust can affect more traditional key performance indicators that directly affect financial performance. Trust elevates customer and brand loyalty, which can lead to revenue. It enhances levels of workforce engagement, which can result in increased productivity and retention. And the data confirms it.

Trustworthy companies outperform nontrustworthy companies by 2.5 times, and 88% of customers who highly trust a brand will buy again from that brand. Furthermore, employees’ Trust in their leaders improves job performance, job satisfaction, and commitment to the organization and its mission.

Despite the data, however, many leaders and organizations still view trust as an abstract concept. Trust should be managed proactively because, when trust is prioritized and acted upon, it can become a competitive advantage. An organization that positions trust as a strategic priority—managing, measuring, investing in, and acting upon it can ultimately build a critical asset.

No heroic leader can resolve the complex challenges we face today. To address the important issues of our time we need a fundamental change of perspective. We need to start questioning many of our taken-for-granted assumptions about our business and social environments.

Leaders serve as role models for their followers and demonstrate the behavioral boundaries set within an organization. The appropriate and desired behavior is enhanced through the culture and socialization process of the newcomers.

Employees learn about values from watching leaders in action.

The more the leader “walks the talk”, by translating internalized values into action, the higher level of trust and respect he generates from followers.

To help bridge the trust gap we recognise that organizations need to work with each other and with wider society to identify practicable, actionable steps that businesses can take to shape a new relationship with wider society: a new ‘settlement’ based on mutual understanding and a shared recognition of the positive role that business plays in people’s lives.

To create such a settlement, businesses need to see themselves as part of a diverse, interconnected, and interdependent ecosystem – one that involves government, regulators, individual citizens, and more. Trust within and across this ecosystem is key to its long-term sustainability and survival. That’s why trust needs to be restored to the heart of the business world.

The latest edition of How Might We is out.

In this edition Alexis Kingsbury talks to me about releasing time in business so you can go on a 6 week road trip. And this is not just theory, Alexis was talking to me whilst he was on his trip.

He shares insights and ideas on how to document processes and be able to delegate them confidently to others. How this documentation accelerates onboarding, increases performance and engages and empowers team members.

Alexis is an award-winning entrepreneur, with over 10 years of experience, currently running two SaaS businesses (AirManual and Spidergap) with a remote and global team. I also support others as a board member and consultant/coach (e.g. Sony Interactive Entertainment).

Alexis LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexkingsbury/

Alexis Website: https://www.airmanual.co/

My guest is Adelaide Goodeve. Adelaide is an elite performance coach, who, within 10 years, went from nearly bedridden to Ironman athlete and go-to performance coach for some of the world’s best companies, leaders, teams and athletes.

In this episode Adelaide talks about her journey and how brain training helped her, and how it helps people change mindsets to become elite performers.

Adelaide's linkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelaide-goodeve/

Adelaides's website: https://www.adelaidegoodeve.com/

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Transcript

Scott: [00:00:00]

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of How Might We, and we're gonna do something slightly different today. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna have a conversation and based on where we go with the conversation is how we going to. So we are going to name this show at the end of the recording. So my guest on this episode, it's Adelaide Goodeve.

So Adelaide, welcome.

Adelaide: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Scott: You're welcome. So we'd like to introduce yourself to the audience. Yes.

Adelaide: My name is Adelaide and I'm an elite performance coach. I teach people how to reprogram their brains to tech the, to take their mindset to the next level and achieve their desired results, whether it's increased performance or enhanced happiness.

Scott: Okay. So, Helping people think differently is, is and sort of reprogramming that, that aspect of the brain. So do you wanna talk me through that a little bit, what that means? [00:01:00]

Adelaide: Yes. So our brain is plastic. So they used to think our brain was hardwired like an electric circuit. So once those pathways were laid down, they didn't think that they could change.

So you're kind of stuck with the results you got, whether they were great or not so great, but they now know that it's actually very far from the truth and the brain is plastic. You wanna think about your brain like a muscle. The more you train one neuro pathway, the stronger and better and faster it is at its job, the less you train another neuro pathway.

The weaker and weaker it becomes and the slur it is at its job. So if you're at the gym and you just worked out one arm, that one arm is gonna get super strong and then that other arm is gonna look like a noodle in comparison. And this is a bit like how your brain works. Cause if you were to train your left arm and it would, so it could catch up with your right arm.

And this is how the brain works, is, is always strengthening the neuro pathways that you use the most, not necessarily the ones which get you the results you want, but it's saying, [00:02:00] okay, they're using, for example, energy and. In the morning the most. So this is the pathways that are gonna make really strong.

We're gonna bring them closer together and it's gonna become easier for them to activate those feelings when thinking about the morning. And so it'll enhance those ones. But if we think of the morning and we're thinking dread the most, then it's going to strengthen and bring close together the neuro pathways for the morning and dread.

So when we think about the morning, we're like, Ugh, my gosh, I have to get up so early. And we're kind of already in that. State, It's a bit like sheep in the field. You have this chief sheep and every single day he takes his team to the same patch of grass. And over time that pathway is eroded and it's more and more visible.

It's deeper, and it's stronger in that ground. You can see it from space cause the grass is just not there anymore. And that path is very deep. It's a dirt path deep in the ground. Cause they're traveling it every single. But then one day that chief sheet kind of looks across the field and he goes, Wow, the grass of [00:03:00] there is so much greener.

Like, I bet my sheep could thrive if I took them to that area. So in that moment, in less than a split second, he change, He changes the path that they follow, and now that new neuro pathway or that new pathway in the field, Is now becoming the stronger one. They're walking it more and more often, they're using it the most.

That now becomes eroded away and you can see that pathway from space. The old pathway that they used to use is now taken back by nature and you can barely see it and it's very difficult to follow. And this is how the brain changes growth and develops as a result of how we use it and how we use it is determined by our language.

Scott: Okay, so there's a phrase, I can't remember if it's when I coined or had a conversation with or read somewhere. It says, language guides the mind.

Adelaide: Yes, a hundred percent. So the words we use are the architecture and structure, or by reality.

Scott: Yes. Yeah. Cuz what we say is, and our brain can't tell the difference between [00:04:00] reality and I what we think either kind of, so we can be thinking about something in the future, but it hasn't happened.

But our brain. We'll react as if we are in that situation. Exactly.

Adelaide: So it can't tell the difference between what's real and what's imaginary and it can be play to our advantage. Mm-hmm. , we can accelerate using specific tools at that neuroplasticity. So if we can get results, which may take years in very.

Well, I'm very in minutes sometimes actually. So for me, I had severe chronic fatigue syndrome, was how I became an elite performance coach. So I had severe chronic, oh, can't talk this morning, severe chronic fatigue syndrome for four years, and I learned how to. Fully recover by training my brain and I achieve that in three days and fully recovered.

So the brain can get extraordinary results in very quick time by harnessing the power of neuroplasticity and the language you use so you can get the results you want. May have taken years or maybe results you never would've attained. Dawn told me to have it for the rest of my life. But you can use the [00:05:00] brain to get physical and the mental results you want.

Scott: So mind over matter. Yes. Mind over matter. Mind over matter. Okay. So it's interesting to say about performance and happiness cuz in, I can't remember that. Sean, I think is his first name and I've and he's got a great Ted talk about happiness. Mm-hmm. , it says quite often we, we put happiness as the result of something where really happiness is the driver to give us results.

Adelaide: Mm.

Scott: I love that because we normally say, When I get this I'll be happy. But in reality you come up constantly chasing something. Whereas if you are happy. That is the secret source of success. A

Adelaide: hundred percent. I always tell my clients they, Cause also, I feel sometimes, and in our culture as well, like to achieve something, you've almost gotta do it in this like very miserable way.

And so what I tell my clients is, how can you achieve this result but in a more enjoyable way? In a way that you're actually happy and it changes the way we do things in a dramatic way just by asking that very simple [00:06:00] question. So I absolutely, as Ted tore, it sounds like when I should.

Scott: I think it's Sean Arch and I think it is.

I will find it and let you have it. I'll put it in the link of the thing cause it is, That'd be great talk. Cause it again, a bit like you, he talks about just I think there's four or five questions you ask self every day and within 21 days you look at life more positively and has been proven that, that sort of asking yourself those questions, which goes back to you about the mind Yep.

And the language asking yourself, because you were hardwired to answer question. So

Adelaide: you are, and it's a great way to train your brain actually. So in the morning I always get my clients to a morning routine and the brain, our kind of default is to look for the negative. And when we're constantly looking for the negative, it highlights it to you.

Cause it's like, oh, she like, they want to see the negative. Well that's great. , I'll make it easier for them. And so it'll start to kind of take very small, maybe unhelpful things that happen throughout your day and make them into Mount Everest. But by asking yourself specific [00:07:00] questions, like Sean's saying, in this Ted toll, by the end of the bit, you are able to retrain your brain to to highlight you the positive stuff that's happen.

In your life, the stuff that makes you happy and that makes those kind of mole hills into your Mount Everest, which is what you want. You wanna be able to see the positive stuff going on in your life and our society. With social media, with the news, it's constantly training your brain to look the stuff that makes you.

Fearful or anxious or down. And by asking specific questions, especially in the morning, which is the perfect time to wire your brain, you want to really ensure that you are looking for the great stuff that's going on in your life, the stuff that's helping you achieve and create and cultivate the life that you really want to live.

Scott: Okay, so that's, Yeah, cuz what we, what we notice, what we think about is what we notice. So like if you are thinking about buying a car and you think, Oh, quite fancy. I know say an Audi, whatever it is, or a a a mini, all of a sudden you notice minis. Just why? Just cuz I'm thinking about them. I [00:08:00] see them everywhere is cuz your brain says that's what you're interested in.

So that's what I'm going to show.

Adelaide: Yeah, exactly. No, it was a really funny thing. So this was about 10, maybe 10 years ago, and me and a friend were walking down a very quaint high street in London, and I was single, I was around in my early twenties, so I was single looking, you know, looking for the hot guy.

Whereas my friend, she was in her mid thirties and desperately wanted a family. So walking down this high street in London, And she goes to me, she's like, Adelaide, there are so many yummy mummies here. And I was like, What are you talking about there? There aren't any here. And it was if a kinda a veil had been lifted, they were absolutely everywhere, like lining all of the streets on this hot summer day.

But because my brain was looking for hot guys, I just seeing like great looking guys everywhere. My brain wasn't highlighting to me these, this other genre of people and I just couldn't see them. Whereas she could only see them cause. She wanted that thing and [00:09:00] she just didn't have it. It was exactly like the car analogy, and for me it was, it was such a good example of how different people's brain edits their reality according to what they want or what they don't have as well.

And it was, it was quite extraordinary actually. And then it was, when I was learning about the brain, I was like, Wow, that's fascinating how it really does edit your reality and dull out certain things and highlight to you other things.

Scott: Yeah, it's confirmation bias, isn't it really? So the things that we, we think about the things that get, we get noticed.

Yeah. Is that amazing? You just say, ask one thing and do that, and the world can look completely different to you within that one question or that one bit of information you've been given. Yeah,

Adelaide: exactly. Which is why it's so great to ask those questions in the morning especially.

Scott: So basically filter change, the filter from which you look at your life that day.

And then so you threw it through that lens rather than this lens, and it makes a big difference. So [00:10:00] try that today. So how many red things can you notice today? And it'd be amazing how many red things you'll see today if you just ask yourself that one question and that's the color you'll see everywhere.

Unless you're like me in color blind, you, you can't see it anywhere. So it doesn't really matter.

Adelaide: struggle.

Scott: What does red look like? I've got no idea. Kind of that thing at the top of this, the Tells you what? Yeah, when that on, Just stop. That's it. Okay. I can do that. So it you, it's about neuroplasticity learning to harness that neuroplasticity and the language we go to guide to, to look at the good things in life that we have sort of that appreciation of, of the good.

Adelaide: Yes, it's looking at things that I say you are, you want to look for and talk to yourself in ways that is gonna. Enhance your life. Mm-hmm. , if you're looking to enhance performance, and it's like life and performance, enhancing ways that you want to be thinking and seeing your reality. So I tend to stay away from the negative and positive stuff.

Mm-hmm. , because we have in society labeled like some feelings as negative, such as [00:11:00]down feelings, and then other feelings is positive, like happiness and energy and all that great stuff. But for me it just, and I find it too simplistic because sometimes when. You know, when, when shit stuff happens, you know, those, those negative feelings or those down feelings, the sadness, grief, they're really helpful to feel and you need to feel into them to, to heal and to recover is when we come, when we get stuck in those unhelpful feelings.

In those feelings when they become unhelpful or non-performance or non-life enhancing. But I really encourage everyone to think is. Thinking about your thoughts about what you are doing and thinking it in ways is, is this helping me or is this not helping me achieve my goals or achieve the things I wanna feel?

Is this enhancing my life or is this not? Because once we start asking these kind of questions, you are able to, to guide yourself through your life in a much more helpful way than thinking is this positive or or negative? [00:12:00] Because the world just isn't that binary. There's so many colors out there, and we need to experience all of them at different times to get really great results and to live our best lives.

Scott: Okay. That's an interesting thing about that. Say those, what we would normally class as negative feelings are beneficial to us in certain contexts.

Adelaide: Mm. I think it's, we, we forget that sometimes, and it's important to remember that when something awful happens, actually, it's, it's great to feel. The sadness or the anger or the frustration to lean into that in a, in a healthy way.

And to not, obviously not linger in it. But for grief, for example, everyone processes it in in different ways and for different lengths of time. And for someone it could be helpful to feel it the slightly longer than someone else. But where I find some people struggle is they feel guilty for feeling this, this negative feeling cause they know they shouldn't be feeling it.

Where you start to see people trip up and actually it is healthy to feel these feelings sometimes.

Scott: Yeah. There's a thing called the mood [00:13:00] meter, which talks about feelings and it's on four axises and it doesn't say positive or negatives. It said is it pleasant or unpleasant and is it high or low energy?

And basically it goes in those four quad. So yeah, grief is an unpleasant feeling and it's low energy, but it can also be high energy cuz it could be anger and frustration as well. Mm. But I quite like what you're saying, but you are where you are and being able to recognize that I think is an important aspect as well.

So this is how I'm feeling and saying like, is this helping me or is this

Adelaide: not? Yeah. And then you can start to think, Well, actually what would help me? Instead, you can think, Well, how can I sort change? Mm-hmm. this feeling? What would I love to feel instead? And these questions aren't questions we ask ourselves.

They don't come naturally to us, but they can be so powerful in guiding you, in creating that life that you really want.

Scott: So to do what you do as a, How much do you think is a, a requirement for people to develop that le that the heightened level of self-awareness?

Adelaide: A requirement for me, it saved my life. So for me it's absolutely [00:14:00] vital that people start learning.

How does the brain not, you don't need to learn how does brain work, You become a neuroscientist, do this. But understanding the, that you can change how your brain is wide very quickly, I think is absolutely key to understand. Cause often we don't know that we think once we have something, so I have people come to me saying, I am a perfectionist.

I have anxiety. You know, the, the way they express these things that they necessarily don't want to have is that they're permanent. That they have this thing, or I am this thing, which is connected to their identity. And it can be very difficult to shift, especially when we're told actually you have it.

So like now you have to manage it. But a lot of the time, if you have something, or if you are something you can. The right tools and strategies not to have or be that person. You can choose something else. And often when we are not given that choice. So I think by thinking in these new ways, by asking yourself these new questions, [00:15:00] you can create your identity in a way that you really want and you can start to have the response to certain situations in the way you want as well.

So you don't have to do anxiety, you can. Something else instead. But often it's not presented in that way.

Scott: No, and I think I, that's an interesting point. Say cuz we do attach things to our identity. So even if it's an illness, an illness and some things that, or if it is something like that can't change.

But I don't think we are one thing, we are a multitude of things. A sense. Exactly. I I think we're too, we're too, too keen to label. Yeah. And sometimes they

Adelaide: big labels. That's, Yeah, that's the, the, the label's like the, the, the bane of my life. I really dislike labels because again, they're suggesting once you have this label, you, you have it.

You can't choose to take it off.

Scott: Well, there's an, When you label somebody, they [00:16:00] act to that label. Yeah.

Adelaide: Because I, because it's interesting cause once you get, once you're given, so as a child you'd be told, Oh, you're a very anxious child. And then you're like, Well, I'm anxious. And so the brain is like, Well, this is who you are, this is what we do.

It strengthens all of the neuro pathways around that. So of course, when. You're presented with a multitude of situations you respond in, in an anxious way because that's how your brain has been trained and programmed over all of those years. But what is cool is a lot of people think if you've had something for years, say 10 years, it's gonna take 10 years or years to change that response.

But because the brain doesn't understand the difference between what's imagining and what's reality and cause the brain is very plastic, you can actually create that transformation in. In hours, in minutes or in days.

Scott: And again, it's about that question, isn't it? I think it's Gary Klein, who's a great quote.

Again, I love my quote as you can probably gather, and he said once you gain a new insight, you can't go back to your old way of thinking. [00:17:00] Mm. So once you see this, the life slightly differently or, or start focus on different things, it's hard to go back. But, but I think what's important that you are saying is it's, although you can change your thinking in hours or minutes, It's, you've gotta carry on exercising that muscle over a period of time.

Right? So you can't just say, Oh, we're gonna look at life differently. You've gotta constantly ask yourself those questions to keep that pathway working.

Adelaide: Exactly. And that's where a lot of people have a downfall, I feel. They think like, Oh, I've created change and I'm done. But it is not like that at all.

You have to keep train training that muscle mm-hmm. and that you want and ensuring that the. The path that used to cause you trouble that that stays weak and that it's not being used. What's interesting is

I see, and I've experienced this myself as well with chronic fatigue syndrome, is sometimes when you do a specific process [00:18:00] and you have a massive transformation. So for example, for me, one of the childhood illnesses I had went away within three days and I never had to think about it. . I didn't even know that that was even possible when I went and learned how to train my brain.

Mm-hmm. . So I was really curious cuz with some people in a session you can create huge change and it's kind of, it's set and they don't really have to think about it again. Whereas for others with certain other things, you do have to keep training. The brain. So it also depends. And what can also trip people up is they've created a change.

That neuro pathway is solid, It's now unconsciously you're kind of like an unc, an unconscious genius. So you're unconsciously being great at something. Mm-hmm. . So you get to a point where you've trained the brain, that's now unconsciously training that neuro pathway for you. So you don't have to consciously think about activating and strengthening that neuro pathway.

But what can then happen is maybe a situation or your environment changes and then that [00:19:00]can trigger and activate. An old neuro pathway and then that's where you can kind of have a setback. And that happened to me. I was living in Canada and the, the changing environment wasn't a problem, but the situation changed when I was in Canada and for me it triggered an old neuro pathway for chronic fatigue syndrome.

And that's when I was like, Right, I have to learn more about the brain. Hmm. But I was like, That's absolutely fascinating. Cause I'd been completely fine for years and had traveled all around the world, but it was one. A similar situation to what triggered the Corona fatigue syndrome came up again in calendar.

And that's what triggered my setbacks. I was like, well, this is fascinating. How can I ensure that never happens again? And so it can, you just have to keep, as you said, keep going, keep being conscious about am I activating and strengthening and training the right neuro pathways for the results I want.

It sounds like it can be a. Effort and people can be like, Well it sounds like a lot of effort. Can I not just take a pill or can I not? Is there not like an easier way? Cause we're always looking for shortcuts and then easy ways. But it's really fun to train the brain. It's really fun to get [00:20:00] those great results.

And it is It's easier than going to the gym to some extent. So you wanna be looking and thinking about training your brain that it is a really great and fun thing to do. And asking yourself these questions is, is wonderful. And thinking how can you get more enjoyment and happiness by just changing your feelings and changing the words you use.

So I would like people to think that it is fun and it's interesting and it's curious thing to train your brain, not that it's a chore that you have to do, if that makes sense.

Scott: Yeah, I think if we see something's a chore, think, Oh, just dad, I'm so busy. And I say, Cuz we see it as a chore. Then it just, it just drops down the order of priorities as other things take over and the pressures of life.

But if we see it's something we enjoy doing, it's fun. I do this in the morning, it's great. Yeah. Whatever it is that you are doing, and I'm imagine it doesn't actually take long just to ask yourself a set of different questions. It's just No. Five minutes, . Five minutes. But so it's the, it's the cons.

Having that consistency

Adelaide: will then Yeah. Exactly. It's all about consistency. So I tell people like, you're [00:21:00]just looking for a 1% change, cuz that adds up to thousands of percent transformation over the years. Cause if you are looking, if you change by 1% every day it's not, it's more than 365%. Increase, you're looking at thousand like thousands and thousand percent increase because on day one you're at like a hundred percent for example.

And then day two you're at 101, and then day three you're looking at a 1% increase on 101. So you get a really huge transformation of just a 1% increase. That 1% increase could just be changing one thought or could be asking yourself that one question and acting on the answer so you don't have to do big life-changing things to.

Get a different result. It could just, you said it could just be that one question and that one thing, or having a post-it of that question or a quote that inspires you to create that change. It could be all you need to just nudge your brain in the direction because the brains will absorb that question.

It will absorb that quote, and that will [00:22:00] just, like on an unconscious basis, start to help you think in these performance and life enhancement ways as.

Scott: So there's two things in there that you mentioned. One is the compound effects of change. Mm. Which comes to a lot of people that I've spoken to and to do with sports.

They talk about this marginal gain. Yeah. And I think that's the difference between sort of being good at something and being a master at something is sometimes is just those little marginal gains that people have had. So that's an interesting thing. And, and we talked earlier, you talked about triggers as well and how triggers we can, the triggers can they, Old pathways because of that's how we dealt with it.

And it was obviously such a big thing in the past that, that it can trigger us and being aware of them as well.

So the marginal gains things, they just, And I think sometimes that is what we stop for, isn't it? Cause we want to, So if you say I wanna lose weight as an example you don't lose one stone overnight or two stone overnight. You lose about a pound week or whatever else it is. And eventually you get to where you want.

[00:23:00] It becomes easier and easier and easier because as you weigh less, you eat less and then you exercise more and it's easier when you get quicker and quicker and quicker at it because you are shifting less weight around. That's what I found with my bike. So I was training on a bike, but as I was losing weight as well, I was getting quicker because obviously I was getting stronger, but I had to move less weight.

Mm-hmm. , So every time I got a little bit stronger, I was actually. Faster by a higher percentage because I was shifting less weights and the power to weight ratio was changing rapidly as well.

Adelaide: Yeah, that's really fun when that does happen on the bike. I also love cycling. But yeah, it's, it is so great when that happens because yeah, you're, you are, you have less fat and then you have more muscles so you can

Scott: go faster.

Unless it's down here where it scares, scares the holy je at me. I've, Cause I I'm not too great on bikes. So we're going down this, I used to live in in Devon. Cornel. Very hilly. I learned It is. It is, but there's lots of hills. Mm. So you're going up the hill. I think that's hard work. And going down the hill, I don't really enjoy it that much.

So I do all the work and I'll get like, and everyone else is like whizzing past me, Oh my [00:24:00]God. Go see you around the corner. ,

Adelaide: please don't go. Yeah, I actually really get that. So when I started cycling, I didn't enjoy the downhill too much and a lot of people overtake me because I'm a bit slower and I'm a bit lighter.

So But yeah, I'm, I, I hit the brakes, especially in, in the uk The roads are so bad that if I can't see you, what's ahead of me? I'm like, is there a giant pothole coming? ? You just don't know

Scott: There is that and well in, Yeah, Devon and coal is a lot of his country lanes, so, so cars are gonna come the other way.

And so I wanna be out to stop because see these people like tanking past me like 30, 40 miles now and I'm doing like 20 around this corner going . Yeah,

Adelaide: no, I completely understand.

Scott: But again, that's again, it's what you are saying to yourself thinking about. He's affecting that performance at that time.

Somebody sits there and go, Okay, I'm doing this and I wanna go round that, bend this way. And we're sitting there going, I'm quite fearful of the potential around that corner. And that's having a huge impact on how we approach that, that corner.

Adelaide: Definitely. I actually, this is coming back. I had a client years ago now, and she's doing her first triathlon [00:25:00] and it was all about It was fear of open water swimming.

Mm-hmm. and then fear of the downhill as well. Because she had, it was her first one she started, I. Started triathlon a year ago to lose weight and to make friends. And she just really enjoyed it. But there was a spirit stopping her. And as I listen to yourself when you're cycling, what are you saying to yourself?

Cause when we start to ask those kind of questions, we tend not to be self-aware of the thoughts that we're having. Mm-hmm. Maybe we have an inkling. So she came back and had written down everything she thought, and it was all about like, not being good enough, too slow. Too big, you know I'm gonna fall.

I'm really scared, I'm anxious. I'm going too fast. I can't do this. I'm too wobbly, I'm unstable. You know, all of these thoughts which are stacking the odds really against you for a, having fun, and b, being a safe cyclist. So we stopped all those thoughts and replaced them with, I'm confident, I'm strong, I'm stable, and.

Often, like has [00:26:00] second completely transformed and just hasn't stopped since. It's been amazing. But it's really important, as you said, to think about the thoughts and then actually, what would I love to think instead? Because actually, you know, for some people it is helpful to be a bit more cautious on the downhill because, because of cars or because of competence levels or because of writing skill.

And then that's okay. But if. Want to be thinking in other terms or feeling other things. And that's when you need to create a change.

Scott: So again, that goes back to your, those negative, We say negative. I know you don't like the word negative, positive, but those more, those more cautious thoughts that you might have, could well be helping you.

Because if you are like me, I'm not a great cyclist downhill. I, I, I don't have. Ability to my cycle handling skills aren't great. Cause I used to cycle with somebody who used to be a downhill mountain bike cyclist. Oh wow. And what, what he can make the bike do. I'm just like, I'm not, He's like flying all over the place.

He [00:27:00] stands up, he spins around corners, He does all sorts. So I think, so I, I said, so for me they're quite helpful because they keep in an area that's gonna be. Yeah, I'm not taking risks and so to me that I'm quite comfortable not taking risks downhill, even on the flat rating, just ing along, doing my little funky thing.

Cause it showed me, we went to Athia and we did some cycling around there. Mm-hmm. and that coming down. And you've got people going, I, so there's cars everywhere, there's cyclists everywhere. There's people overtaking cyclists who are coming up the hill. Yeah. As were going down here, I said, This is chaos.

And interestingly, the locals were quite good at it. It was the tourist you had to watch in the cars. Mm. Because they're not used to that level of cyclist around. And, and, and interesting enough, mainly it was British British Road users, you had to be more careful of than Spanish.

Adelaide: Yeah. S sadly, that does not surprise me.

Scott: their attitude toward cycling is completely different with changes. How we cycle it [00:28:00]changes how they drive. And it is, it goes back to what you were saying is our attitude towards it, the language we have, our thoughts really do influence our behavior. Hmm. And what we see is acceptable, unacceptable.

What's good, what is bad.

Adelaide: Yeah. It influences absolutely everything and our physical health as well, which I don't think we fully understand or appreciate either.

Scott: No. Cuz I do. It's the, I can't remember the, the phrase of it, isn't it? But the, what we think in our, our physiological and physical health, there is a massive link between the two of them.

So what we think of, of, So if you've got somebody who doesn't feel isn't having a great day, you don't see them walking quickly.

Adelaide: No. You see them walking slower. They have more of a hunch posture. They're looking down. And then that will be how, and then they'll be the. What what's interesting is when it comes to changing language, when you have self talk is also, well, what, how does your voice sound?

And if someone's having a bad day, they'll be having this like a down sounding voice as well. They'll be slowed to. So you have all of that coming in. And the [00:29:00] fastest way you can get people to change state or to change feelings is literally to change your posture. And that's why power posing comes into play as well.

Because it changes the way when we smile. You are unable to feel those down feelings because of the chemicals being released in your brain. And so you wanna be harnessing this by ha when we wanna feel happy, just by bringing your shoulders back, by looking up, you're signaling to your body like, Hey, I, I feel happier, or I feel more positive or more optimistic.

So all of this, all of your, your body's posture, How you talk to yourself, how it sounds, it all changes your physical response as well. And it's interesting with, with the words we use, because often when we're maybe sick or we're in pain, it's like, Hey, how much pain are you in? Like 10. Like, let me know, like on a scale of one to 10, doctors ask us a lot as well.

Like 10, you're in, you're in a lot of pain. Zero. , you are not in very much pain. Like how? How much care would you rate yourself in on this pain scale? And by now you've obviously had, pain has been activated [00:30:00] five times by now, and so you're gonna be in a lot more pain. Cause you're thinking, how much pain am I in?

Okay, well my leg feels a bit painful. How much pain would that be if I was to rate on the pain scale? And so you are already like all of this is being activated and you're getting more pain in your body, so then it's gonna be like maybe an eight. Whereas if you're asked how much. Are you in, on a scale of one to 10 on this comfort scale, 10 being in your, in a huge amount of comfort, zero, you're not, you're not in a lot of comfort.

How high would you rate your comfort? Your brain's now scanning your body for comfort levels instead so, and it's gonna enhance the comfort levels of enhancing pain levels. So it's really the wordies are so interlinked to the body. It was my language that kept me stuck. Having severe chronic fatigue syndrome.

My broken wreck was like, Ugh, I'm so tired. Like I look outta bed. So much effort. I'm so tired. Like brushing your teeth. Wow, this is such a heavy toothbrush. It's really tiring. I can't do this. You know, that was was what I was talking to myself. So no wonder I [00:31:00] stayed stuck by accident and unintentionally in that state of chronic fatigue, and I was by changing that language that helped me to fully recover.

So it's, it's fascinating the way that our, our brain is so interlinked to our physical body's response.

Scott: It's interesting, and we talked about that, that comfort zone, the language you uses. How high are you as well? Yeah. Not where are you, but how high are you? So you're encouraging people to push their level of comfort up?

Cause we're talking. Yeah. Oh, how high is it? Not how low is it? It's how far,

Adelaide: Exactly. But not many people I've, I've used examples same times to the first person who's ever like picked up on that because not many people realize the subtlety of language either. So when you are encouraging change, you're.

encouraging it using language. Mm-hmm. . So like, how much positive transformation would you love to have? Like how high would you school yourself? Like how, how great is your day going so far? Instead of asking, how are you as well, how great a day are you having? So the study of language is fascinating, creating and nudging [00:32:00] people in the right direction.

Of course the opposite is also true and it can be encouraged. The, the other way as.

Scott: So learning that and really, really, really nailing down and really being aware of the language we use as, and even as you say, even those subtleties in how or what words we're using and how they influence what we then scan for.

Mm-hmm. So I suppose it's like a, a radar, isn't it? You your language sets the, sets the sensitivity in what the radar's actually looking for and then the brain goes and does its thing. Yeah, I love

Adelaide: that. Exactly.

Scott: So your, your, your, your, your, your language is the input and your, Cause your brain's really good cuz it is, it's trying to be as helpful as it possibly can and it's highly fuel cuz it's, I think I read some ways in it.

So the brain. Uses about 20 to 30% of the energy of an adult and about 60% of the energy of a child. Mm. And it can literally power a light bulb when he's thinking the amount of energy it can create. So it [00:33:00] says, Well, you know, I'm quite, look at it as a car. So your, your, your brain's really a four by four or the jun in your fuel consumption.

So what it says is, How can I autopilot more of this to make it more. So, but your language, exactly your language will guide those autopilot ritual, neuro, neuro, neuro pathways that you generate. And then as you said, the brain will unconsciously do it for you don't even have

Adelaide: to think. Yeah. And you wanna just make sure that you are autopiloting the right neuro pathways.

Cause you said it's looking at what's helpful to you. Mm-hmm. . And often what's helpful to you is the neuros that you've used the most. So if you wanna be a more confident person, but the pathways you've used the. For anxiety, that is what the brain is gonna make that shortcut for you and what, what it'll put on an autopilot.

Cause it thinks that's what's being helpful to you. Mm-hmm. . So you've gotta make sure that you are putting on autopilot the confidence in your pathway or the results that will get you what you want. Because the brain, the brain doesn't mean to sabotage you. It, it just does by [00:34:00] accident and unintentionally.

Scott: Yeah. It's just doing, it's doing what you're guiding it to. Really, isn't it? Is it? Yeah. So it is a, is it a slave to us or is a we a slave to it? That's an interesting conversation. Mm-hmm. And as loads of people say about that, the level of consciousness and unconsciousness and where sits where and who drives what.

But even for something to be unconscious, it has to be driven. But for me, it has to be put in there consciously to start with.

Adelaide: Yeah, exactly What I find for me, I feel the brain having, So with my experience with Corona fatigue syndrome it was unconscious and unintentional that I created the severe state of Corona fatigue syndrome for, for years for myself.

Like I didn't mean, like I, I did not wish that on myself, but I was an unconscious genius or an upside down genius at creating that result and kind of upside down genius cuz you are brilliant at getting the. Result. So it was like an unconscious upside down genius cause I could get it on demand whenever I wanted.

It was like one of those, like a car that was maybe like a real tin can car, but just started on [00:35:00]those frosty days every day. So you had to get this like unhelpful result. But by consciously making it, by making a conscious process and. Understanding, Okay, well this is the real, the result that is occurring, this is the result I want, and then making that result happen, I was then becoming consciously competent at getting a good result.

Then that led to me becoming an unconscious genius, as you said, when that's on autopilot for getting the results you really, really want. So for me, as a hundred percent, it can start on a unconscious basis, but you are then stepping into your power and harnessing the brain to get the results you want.

Scott: So again, goes back to that awareness of what is, what am I possibly unconsciously doing with my language?

I love that upside down genius. I've never heard that before. I think it's brilliant.

Adelaide: Yeah. So I can't take full credit for that. So I learned with Phil Parker who created Dr. Phil Parker, who created the lightning process. That's how I feel. You recovered from chronic fatigue syndrome and he calls it when you are brilliant at getting a result you don't want is an upside down genius.

And I was like, it's such a, it is such a [00:36:00] great term and I, I love it as well and I use it all the time. When we get an unhelpful response, people kind of beat themselves up about it. But actually it's amazing in like, in an, in an upside down way. It's really amazing that your brain and your body has been so good at getting you this result that yes is unhelpful, but in a very brilliant and con and consistent and reliable way and say, Well, what happens if we could use that process but get you the result you actually want?

And then that's a very interesting, like, well that would be really cool. Like, how do I get that? And then you can go onto the next step.

Scott: So how do you harness the consistency of your brain's, the ability of your brain to be consistent in doing something instead of that way? To this way?

Adelaide: Yeah. Because sun, often, when we sabotage ourselves, it can be very great at doing, sabotaging ourselves in that one way.

Mm-hmm. and a lot of people are like, Oh, it's so frustrating, it's annoying, It's, they get angry about it. But [00:37:00] actually you wanna put. Kind of a positive spin on that and reframe it and be like, Well, that's amazing because your brain is doing this for you in this really incredible way, and it, it thinks that this is what you want, but it's not.

But let's just look at the, the way it's getting it for you. Like that is incredible. Why don't we do that, but just get you the result you actually want instead. And people like, Wow, that's actually, And that starts to change. It starts to opens people's minds up to change as well when they reframe it and seeing it as a good thing.

There was a guy, so in your linguistic programming you have Richard Bandler, who was the creator of it, and he has an audio book. And one of the examples he uses, which I think is absolutely fascinating is the London bombings. And this girl comes to him, he's terrified. She was on the, on the bus when the, during the London bombings and now she's terrified of buses in ruck sex.

To reframe it. Bandler goes, Well, actually I would love to have you as my bodyguard. Do you, Do you hire out your [00:38:00] services? And she's like, What are you talking about? And he's like, Well, statistically, the chances of you being in another attacks into this is like ridiculously low. So if you are with me when I travel around London, he was like, I'll be completely.

And she'd never thought about it like that before. And it started to shift the stuckness. Cause she started to see a, a, like a, a slightly positive way. Of be of reacting in this way or having that experience. So just by sometimes reframing and looking at it from a different perspective, we can start to see a positive aspect of doing that unhelpful response or of having this experience that maybe we can just see as sabotaging ourself all the time.

Scott: And again, we we keep, we circle back to this language, the unconscious language that we use or the expectations. Yeah. How it really does drive our, drive, our behavior and how we perceive so that say refocusing or recalibrating how we look [00:39:00] at the world or that it gives us a different reality. Cause there is how the.

They did an interesting, I think they did a, and it shows you how we think. We see something, we accept everyone to see the same thing and they don't, because again, how they look at the world and what they think's important and what they think about that time is what the brain's gonna be looking at. Did an experiment, led some people in a pub, then they got some actors in, had a big fight, and then the police turned up.

Yeah, and he interviewed to 12 people and it was like you saw 12 different films. So there were 12 completely different variations of exactly the same incident that they all witnessed at exactly the same time. Because of possibly their different ways of looking at things, what they would notice, what they didn't see how conscious they were of what was going on around them, how much they might have been in their own thoughts and internalizing at that point.

So that one event was not seen the same by 12 people who were.

Adelaide: Yeah, which is great cause imagine if it was the world would be such a, like a much more dull place. ,

Scott: I'd be boring as, wouldn't it be boring as, And then if you wouldn have a job and neither would I. So there we, this is [00:40:00] quite good. So if everyone saw the world this away, it'd be fantastic.

It would be great and it'd be great to get people that way. But it is a journey for us to help people of what you are talking about for your or people on that journey. So when we started, we talked about unstoppable performance and Happys. Is where we were playing around with the name of this. I think we've, we just keep coming back to that same thing, doesn't it about be really aware of how you are talking to yourself and what you are doing, but harnessing that plasticity of the brain Mm.

And saying, isn't it again, I'll go back to that genius thing. Isn't it great what the brain's done process wise? Yeah. And then how can we then harness that process or guide that process or point it to a more positive outcome for us? Sounds so simple, doesn't it? So

Adelaide: simple. The funny thing is though, is it is almost that simple just by, you just have to ask a couple of questions and use performance enhancing language, but it's the consistency [00:41:00] that can make it more challenging.

And sometimes when we're in ourselves, you can't see the wood for the trees as well, so you need, Well, that's why we come in, is having someone else come in and guide you through. That process. Cause long as you just get stuck and you need another perspective, who can, who can help you see the wood for the trees.

Absolutely.

Scott: And that's, I think that's all useful for everyone just to sit back and say, Do you know what, How have I just, after it, just think about at the end of today, what language have you used today? Mm. And then how much of it has been helped you? And how much of it has not helped you achieve what you want to achieve?

And it's simple then, then at least you get an idea of where you are in your own, in your own internal. .

Adelaide: Yeah, exactly. Or if you have an event coming up whether it's a presentation, a talk, or a meeting, an interview then what kind of thoughts are you having around that? Cause often it can be really helpful and you're setting yourself up for success.

Or, or perhaps you are, you're not. So that's another great place to look for what language am I using and what would I love to be [00:42:00] thinking or feeling? I.

Scott: Yeah, I do think, cause I've I've talked to quite a few people in around interviews and I do think a lot of people have talked themselves out the job before they've even turned.

Adelaide: A hundred percent. Yeah. I've helped so many people through the interview process. It's been fascinating because they do do that. People are talking themselves out of the job. They're talking themselves down, they're talking themselves into an unhelpful state. So when they go into the interview, they may be more anxious and the calm, confident person they usually are.

So it is you, you need to talk yourself into things, into everything. Whether it's for an interview or whether it's for. A talk, a presentation, a project being good at a project. Recently it was quite interesting. I had a friend going, she travels for work and they were going to, going to India and I could just hear herself talking herself out of doing this amazing job in India.

And I was like, You? And I said, I was like, Do you mind if I just intersected? Cause I, sometimes people aren't open to coaching, which is completely fine. But I was like, Please start talking yourself into doing this. Because I was like, you're. Amazing at your job. I was like, you can do [00:43:00] this. And some, we just need that person say like, You can do this, but just start talking yourself interviewing amazing.

Or interview being the amazing person that you are in this, in this project because you have got it. And you can do it. And just remember all the reasons why you can.

Scott: I, I think, and that's interesting cause I, I was coaching somebody a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about them dealing with a character that they.

There was some conflict at work in the character and cuz they'd just gone into this new role and this other thing. And then this person had come from customer services and I said, How would you deal with them if they were a customer with a complaint? And they went, so, so if I see that person as a customer, then they've got all those processes in place about how they, And it's the same skill sets.

Now, I do think, and it's interesting what you say, that we tend to learn something in a context and we say, Yep, it's only, it's only applicable in that context. I mean something different. I are you, you're still the same person. Those skills still exist. You've learn to dev, deliver 'em in that context, [00:44:00] but you're in a different one.

Are they applicable?

Adelaide: I absolutely love that. And it's so true. A lot of people, we kind of compartmentalize almost and separate these things, but the skills are, as you said, they're complete transferable and intermixed and there's learning to pull on them in different situations, to to be your, to be your best valve and to be your performance enhancing way as well.

Scott: So instead of seeing the world like a box, see the world like a do dot. Oh, I

Adelaide: like that. I've not heard that one before. That's a great one. That's mine. Brilliant. Absolutely. That's an awesome one.

Scott: Well, I go cuz I I do Clifton strengths, so that's about understanding what we're good at and then how we can lean into that.

And some of the things you were talk about, perfection is that might be somebody who's got high levels of discipline. Mm. And so, discipline's cool, discipline's a good thing. And how can you leverage that discipline to get you what you want? Yeah. But understanding that's, that's your tendency, which is cool.

We all have our tendencies, but it's about do we need to dial it up sometimes dial it down, sometimes. When is it helpful? When is it in hunger? Helpful. And then we would, and I just said, cuz I've got high ideation. [00:45:00] So I just sit there and I just look at the world and it's like.to dot. And I can sort of pull things from different areas.

So I don't see anything as a box because I think that just that constrains it. I said just look at it as a dot. And then you wanna draw a picture. What dots have you got to help you draw that picture? Mm. What, what exists and what have you learned? What, what is from where and how can you draw it into what you need to do now?

Because I don't think there is a box, even when people say, get out, out the box sinking. So I don't like that phrase.

Adelaide: No. It is always suggesting there's limits to that

Scott: and boxes. If there was a box, then we'd all have the same box. Yeah, we would, but we, we don't. So there can't be

Adelaide: No, a hundred percent. I agree with you there.

It's quite funny there a lot of society, normal sayings you can often find. Or I think if you are into language, if you're into coaching, a lot of them you can find what am I trying to say? That they're very limiting a lot of the time and they can find people to thinking in certain ways. But [00:46:00] actually I'd be so curious with like, for example, like the book thinking if, if there are different phrases or if society could start again, but from.

A limitless place, an a, a place of abundance. How would that change people's perceptions and change society norms? Cause I often find, especially with the environment that we're c, that's cultivated, if we could start from scratch again, but only for example, in the news, if it was the opposite was true, how would that change people's thoughts and that change people's mental and physical?

Scott: That would be an interesting experiment. If we could run one. If we could pilot

Adelaide: it. If you could do it, it'd be fascinating.

Scott: Amazing. Just say if we just change the way things like, how are you feeling today? Not bad.

Adelaide: I hate that. Fine. Okay.

Scott: Not bad. And I'm good. Yeah, I'm good. So I think that's But you do, you look at all the language We do and it comes, but they've, So one of the theories is how we are that we are in some ways is the people who are more cautious.

That trait of cautiousness and [00:47:00] fear are the people who survive. Mm. And the people who are more cavalier and more less risk averse and sort of more adventurous are the people who die because in the old days, way forward, is that, is that a tiger around the corner? And then people who are more, Oh, go and have a look and all of a sudden there's a tiger.

So that sort of gene of that gets sort of Because they, they, they die more often. It, it kind of gets, I can't remember with the word now. It, it, there's less of them. So it becomes less and less and less and less, and the more cautious people, the people live. So that becomes the gene that gets permeates through, through us as, as, as humans.

And then maybe that's why we've got more of a, an inkling towards fear than the positive. Mm-hmm. , So I can't remember. I think it might be David Rock who talks.

Adelaide: Interesting. That makes sense. It'd be curious. I wonder how far you need to get away from that. Cause obviously we don't really have the fight or flight in the, in the natural world anymore.

So I wonder how far we need to get away from that for, [00:48:00] for things to start to change.

Scott: Yeah, because it's hard. Why didn't it fight or flight? Fight for, It's hardwired and we just don't see, we know it's, now it's things as you say, like it's, it's fear of The threats we see can be psychological, can be physiological.

So things around about how do people perceive me? Everyone think that's why people don't like public speaking is because I could get rejected by people and they might be my peers. I'm gonna get rejected in public and, and that's the fear that drives it, which is, is a huge fear because it's, we we're social and a social rejection.

And that's I think why people, there's such a anxiety people have, or a fear or, or around speaking in public cuz that fear. What happens if they don't like

Adelaide: me? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or if I completely bomb or, Yeah.

Scott: And what's gonna happen to me? What are people gonna think about me is in front of everybody else and it's gonna, it's gonna be horrendous.

So telling a Joe about comedian, telling an uny joke in an audience, and all of a sudden nobody laughs. Oh, but that's, I think those are the things we can say. If [00:49:00] we understand where we are coming from and why, as you say, then it can help us manage that situation and us in a better way to have those positive outcome.

Definitely. But that level of awareness we go back to. So we are coming to near the end, I believe. So what would you like to call it?

Adelaide: It's a great question, . I do like how to think better for something maybe.

Scott: Okay. How might we

Adelaide: think better?

Maybe it's not very en. Do you have an idea in mind?

Scott: I was thinking, I'd rather thinking better. How might we guide our mind for success?

Adelaide: That's a great title. Let's go with that one. You like that one? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's way better than what I was thinking of.

Scott: I might, we guide our mind for success. Cause it goes back to what we were all saying, isn't it?

That language guides the minds.

And the success is whatever you want it to be. Performance, [00:50:00] whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Anything. It's the life you want to achieve. And so what you are doing is helping you get to where you want to be as a person. You Yeah.

Adelaide: In a, in a more enjoyable way. , I

Scott: like that. The more Enjoy. Cause we are very stoic, aren't we?

Stoicisms quite high. The, that we have to make sacrifices to achieve for. And that permeates through a lot of the stuff is go Okay. Cuz it's like, and I think sometimes maybe Covid is actually trying, starting to change that, that built in because I was doing some work with somebody and they were talking and one of the questions I asked is about leadership training.

Leadership coaching just during Covid. And I said, What has Covid given you? What do you appreciate about Covid? The experience, what has it given you that you appreciate and so many people answering that questions about that time, that chance to slow down and appreciate that. And then, and then sit there.

I was on this, this wheel just running around doing things like, I'm doing this for my future, but are you enjoying the today? Mm-hmm. And a lot of 'em say no. So when they go back, [00:51:00] it's gonna change about what is acceptable, what's not acceptable. And so I, I really think it's important about, as you've highlighted, enjoying the journey as well.

You

Adelaide: have to, It's so important. We tend not to. Yeah, we tend not to, and we don't, We tend not to look for ways in which we can mm-hmm. or we already assume that we can't. And we assume that it's gonna be hard and it's gonna be boring. And because of that assumption, that's how we create the processes to achieve what we want to achieve.

If you're looking well, how can I make it more enjoyable? How can I make it, you know, more high energy or how can I get excited about it? Then we start to recreate the processes and transform 'em into ways in which we do enjoy things and even the boring stuff can become enjoyable. Maybe because of the outcome that it gets us.

Scott: Yeah, I mean, I suppose if you talk to people who train, Cause it's interesting when you talk to an athlete, they don't go to the gym, they don't diet. No. It's a lifestyle. They, they train and eat. So they see that as part of their, their training [00:52:00] is part of their lifestyle. Yeah. And they, I'd imagine most of the time, cause I had to say like you, I love cycling.

So I go out, I'll go out my bike, not so much cause I've put a lot of weight on. So it's been over at the Covid. I've got out as much as I wanted to. But just going out on a bike and even if I do 50 miles and I did land, enter John Gros amazing. And I didn't see it as a chore. I loved it cuz it's, I think it's just a great way of experiencing the uk not in a.

Not walking. And we were all mainly B roads, so we weren't one of these like do it in nine days types. It was over two weeks. Yeah. So it was, and people took my bag. So I wasn't self, I wasn't self-sufficient, but but I saw parts of the world. I've never, parts of the UK I've never seen before. Saw B Roads went through like Cornall Devon up through there, into Wales Cross and through.

North new North England and through the lake districts and up through Scotland and Scotland's a long country. You think when you pass the border, you're nearly there? No, it's a long, It doesn't look like it. It's a long way. So I went through Edinburgh, [00:53:00] then went through Inverness, no cross that.

So, so were amazing parts of the country really up close and personal and didn't tank it. Didn't get my head down and just do it. Some people did because they, that was their challenge. They set for themselves how fast can I do this? And that's what they wanted. I just said how, to me, I said, Cause we started and I.

So we're on holiday. Yeah. So we stopped and had ice creams on the way in bits and pieces, and we just enjoyed the experience and we had a great time. Great time. But it was physically quite demanding. Mm. I didn't see it as a chore. I saw it as something I enjoyed doing.

Adelaide: Yeah. And something you get to do as well.

Mm-hmm. . And it's, And that's the difference I, I think when people fail at dieting and fail at exercising is cause it's a chore and something they have to do where it's actually, again, like what can you do to make that process enjoyable? Like what sport or what kind of physical thing would you love to do instead?

And actually, I think walking is the most undervalued form of exercise that you have out there because anyone can walk. It's non-impact. It's brilliant. You can just go out your door and you can see areas of your landscape. Of [00:54:00] your country that you wouldn't necessarily see in certain, in such a slow way.

And I love walking. I, I'm walking all the time. We have dogs as well, so they kind of make you go out there and, and walk and explore locations and try out different, different trails that you just wouldn't do. And it's really, it's, it's so, it can be so fun and you can listen to music or an audio book as well if you want, but I feel.

Is when it fails is when people look at like, Oh, it's gonna be so boring. It's gonna be really hard. And science is great. They want it to be hard, but I feel like what, what do you, again, coming back to the same thing, like what do you enjoy doing the most? Is it cycling or walking or running or swimming or a combination of everything and then kind of being like an athlete you get to do, And is that part of your lifestyle that you look forward to doing that thing?

Scott: Absolutely. It's like last night just went out on the bike ride, just did 20 miles. Off work. So come on, it's sunny, let's go out. It's great. Oh,

Adelaide: such a nice evening. Last night. I'm jealous.

Scott: And I live near the sea, so we basically, and we, but the way [00:55:00] out, we had our headwinds and I was like, but remember, it means it's gonna be so much easier coming home cuz it was an album back.

So it was right. Cause we went west into this western, the easily headwinds and, and coming back, we flew down the promenade. It was great. And the beach was on the sides and we thought, and then there was little bars said, Should we stop and have a, have a drink on the beach? What a life.

Adelaide: Amazing. That sounds incredible.

Scott: It was a good, It was a good evening. But okay. Adelaide, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and thank very much for your time and your insights. So how might we guide our minds for success? Happy with that? Yeah. Brilliant.

Adelaide: Thank

Scott: you. I do. Okay. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you

Adelaide: so much for having me. It's been really fun.

Scott: You're welcome.

In this Episode my guest is Brad Borkan. Brad has a great interest in how people and businesses build resilience. In this episode Brad shares his thoughts on how lessons from leaders of the past can help us make better decisions today.

Brad's first book was the award-winning book: WHEN YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT: Extreme Decision Making Lessons from the Antarctic. This book puts the reader right into the action of the life-and-death decisions made by early explorers. In it, we reveal unparalleled lessons in leadership, teamwork, and the sheer determination that can help all of us make better decisions in life. It won 1st Place in the Chanticleer International Book Awards for Insightful Non-fiction.

Transcript

Scott: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of How Mike We, And on this episode, I'm pleased to welcome Brad Balkin and we are gonna be talking about how might we learn from history, make better decisions. So, Brad, welcome. Would you like to introduce yourself

Brad: please? Hi, Scott. Great to be here. Thanks for having me on your show.

I'm Brad Borkin, as you said, and I've written two books that have to deal with history in terms of looking at great explorers and great people in history and great endeavors that were occurred in history and ask what can we learn from this? Focusing on the decision making side of these people and these endeavors.

Scott: And I think, I mean, I like decisions cuz I think we've mentioned before when we're off air is decisions are basically the precursor to every action we.

Brad: Yes, they're at the heart of, of everything. And one of the things when it came to the early [00:01:00] Antarctic explorers was there's lots of books written about them as people, about the expeditions, like what they ate and how, where they traveled and the challenges they faced.

But actually up until the, the book that my coauthor and I wrote, no one ever looked at the decisions. And we looked at the life and death decisions, which were actually the most exciting ones because they all, they all came near death all the time, but they actually very rarely ever died.

Scott: Well, I can't, I suppose dying only happens once, so Yeah, that's it.

Brad: That's that's true. But, but they, but they came, they came, they faced all sorts of commodities and, and challenges and, and you know, these, these, you know, everything from frostbite, curvy to, to flowing, harasses and, and all sorts of things and that, but somehow they, they were sort of at one level sort of indestructible.

Yeah.

Scott: I think the interesting thing is, as I say, you make a, you make a decision. I think we've talked about this as well before, is, and basically you're trying to predict the future with a decision. Cause when [00:02:00] we don't know the outcome, until we actually make that decision and enact it.

Brad: That's right. Yeah.

And, and, and actually a good, good point is, is I retired from my main job in 2021 in, in July, 2021, which coincide with to launch my second book. And inflation was 2% and the stock market was slowly growing and the world was at peace. And a year later, you know, it seemed like a sane. Normal rational decision.

Inflations at 10%, the stock market is down 25%, and the war, you know, at least Ukraine and, and Russia at war. And it's, it's just a complete un perhaps not predictable, but it's, it's the, the outcome of a decision that you, you don't know until you look back many years later on. What's that? A good decision or a bad decision?

Scott: Well see, I, my view on decisions is I think the decision, we make decisions, and usually it's one of the, with the. Capabilities we have at that time, whatever they may be with the best [00:03:00]intentions for the outcome that we want this, that that's there. So I would say a decision either has the desire, Or unexpected outcomes.

Brad: Yes. And I think one of the things that's exciting about life and about looking, whether you're looking at explorers or you're looking at, at his great people in history, is that you can't, no one could predict the future. And even for them, like, just like we can't predict the weather that well, we really can't predict what the outcome is.

Whether you're heading to the South Pole and you're running outta food and you're trying to decide what do we do next? Or you're trying to build a Panama Canal and you're dealing with workforces, dying of yellow fever and, and all sorts of other engineering challenges and building the Panama Pinella.

It's like you just, you, you make. Best decision you can. But one of the things we learned, my co-author and I figured out in looking at these great decisions and great people, was that it's not about making the best decision, it's [00:04:00] about having the resiliency to recover from a bad decision.

Scott: Okay. And I suppose that's, especially when you're talking about the, the extremes in which they were doing the Panama Canal and the and the explorers is they are extreme.

And I imagine that a decision has an impact and you can see that quite quickly. And then you have to say, make a recovery decision or a

Brad: another one. Right. But that's true in modern life as well. I mean, in a sense like we all have to make the, we all make decisions about jobs and houses and cars and all the things that we do in our, in our day to day lives, relationships, all sorts of things.

And you can strive to make the perfect decision by, I've got a friend who tr want to buy a car, and he spent years, several years analyzing, looking at websites, trying to find the perfect car. as opposed to just going, buying a car and being like, Oh, if it's not the one for me, I'll just sell it and buy another one.

It's you can't it. We have so many tools at our disposal to make perfect decisions, or we think we can make perfect decisions that we're actually [00:05:00] better off making a decision and it might be the right one. As time will tell, or it may be not a good one, but there are many different ways to recover from, from a not good decision,

Scott: I suppose, making.

Well, the other thing I'll say is not, deciding not to do anything is a decision in itself.

Brad: That's right. That's right. Yeah. And, and there's some famous quote from Teddy Roosevelt about something like, you know, the something to the effect of the best thing is to make a decision, and the worst thing you could do is just not make a decision.

It's, it's that to make. The, It's better to even make the wrong decision than to make no decision. Cause at least then you're taking action that you're not being

Scott: on the path, aren't you? Something's happening. You've got momentum, right?

Brad: And if you're on that path and it's wrong, As happened with Panama Canal, you can start making, making the right decision.

So what? Yeah, the interesting thing with the Panama Canal was that the question was do you build a sea level canal? Basically you build a big trench and let the Atlantic Ocean of Pacific Oceans fill it. Or do [00:06:00] you build a, a canal with locks as the p Panama Canal exist today? And they started out with this idea, well, you just build a big trench and.

Dig across Panama and across all the swamps and the jungles and the rain forest and you big build this big trench. And, and it, and the problem was, it was the wrong decision. You just couldn't, they, the. The soil of the clay, the, the very wet, dense material earth that's there, that kept the more they dug, the more they had landslides.

I was just destroying the work they were doing. And they had, And what they found was that, So let's go back on the original decision and say that was the wrong decision. We try to the wrong decision, now we've gotta go to build locks. And they end up building 12 locks, each lock being like a thousand feet long and you know, three times bigger than any lock ever built in the world.

And they built 12 of them in 19, you know, in the years between 1910 and 19 four. . [00:07:00] So it's looking at a decision and saying, Okay, now we've got, make the wrong decision. Now it's gonna cost a whole ton of effort and money to to, to correct it, but we will correct it, and they were successful.

Scott: So in your view of all these, the, the people that you've done, they've all not been afraid to make decisions and actually enact on something and then say, Oh, that's not quite worked out properly.

And then made have say, the resilience then to make corrective.

Brad: Exactly, exactly. You saw that, we saw this in Antarctica a lot. Mm-hmm. that there's a wonderful decision that Shackleton had to make. He was, so this is his first expedition that he led in Antarctica, and it's lesser known than the expedition where the ship got sunk.

Ice and got crushed in the ice and, and sunk and, and called the endurance expedition. And this was called the Nero Expedition. And he and four men as part of this expedition left base [00:08:00] camp, and they were treking to the South Pole and they got to roughly from the coastline to the South Pole was about.

800, 850 miles. They got to within 103 miles of South Pole and realized they were running out of food and they were either, they had this choice, which is they had choice of either we go forward. And we probably dial all the way back. Almost certainly we'll die because we don't have any food together.

Sch back and we don't have any, There's no communication methods. There's nothing that they can call back the base camp and say, Hey, come rescue us. Or they turn around. And so two years setting up an expedition, checking out 700 something miles saying, Hey, we're 103 miles from the South Pole. We just need to turn back if we're gonna live to see it another day.

And he came to the decision and you'd think, Okay, this is a binary decision. This is either we go forward and we'll probably we'll hit our goal, but we'll probably die on the way back, or we go turn back at this [00:09:00] point. And he chose a third option, which was, he said, What we're going to do, I think it was January 8th, 1909.

And he said, What we're gonna do, we're gonna leave all you know on. On this day. We're going to leave everything. The tens, the food the sweeping bags. Everything that we've got, we're gonna leave behind. We're gonna walk south as far as we can for one day. We're gonna plant the British flag and that.

Then we'll turn around, head back to, to the camp site that we had, and the next day we'll start heading back. So the question is, why did he do that? And his reasoning was to cross the a hundred mile mark that it seemed a lot better to return to Britain being, Hey, we got within a hundred miles of South Pole than to say we got 103 miles to the South Pole.

And it's that ability to say, it's to make a decision, but to say, often we as human beings wanna find, make a binary decision. We wanna say, Is it A or B? Is it X or [00:10:00] Y? Is it Stop or go? Is. , you know, forward to back and he's was able to say, Look, there are third dis, there are third options. Yes, we have to go back if we're gonna live.

But taking that one extra day to plant the flag that much further meant to think it was sort of declare victory. It wasn't of, it wasn't a real victory, but it was a enough of victory that they go back to England and he could start raising money for another expedition.

Scott: So I think the thing for me is When your decision making is looking at the impacts of our decisions as well.

So and so we could stop here. It'd be a failure. We can go on and we can die. And you say there's, they see quite binary and he, he somehow picked up that third. And I think that's really important for how we're in business today and moving forward. Cuz the world is very ist binary.

Brad: Exactly. And I think this is the thing that, but it, But our human brains really like this.

We really like to. Make a decision. And I think when [00:11:00] you get into boardroom decisions, you find that, as, you know, as teams of people are analyzing things in big corporations that's trying to be like, Okay, I gotta get, you know, make, help the boss make the right decision. You've gotta go into the boardroom and be like, Here are your choices.

Your choices. A, your choices B. And often the choice is way more complicated than that, but it's been boiled down to A or B because that's easy to go to a boardroom and say, Here are your choices CEOs, cfo, whoever, and, and this way, you know, and, and here's my recommendation, as opposed to being, Well, what's search, searching for that third alternative that may be.

Not a, not B, but something that will enable us to plant a flag. And, and it, it may be a better solution. Cause you can't, like we were saying, we can't predict the future. Mm. So

Scott: even if it had gone to that day, somebody could have got injured or something that could have never made it back or whatever. So there was no guarantee of actually still being alive in the Arctic.

It would just reduced the risks. Of death. [00:12:00]

Brad: Yes, exactly. Everything's, everything's calculated risk, but it's, it's trying to say what, what gives you momentum? So it's, it's yeah, it, it's, it's fascinating. It's a fascinating study of when you're looking at people like Imbar Kingdom, Renell, like Teddy Roosevelt, like Gold Robinson, who was the first head of South Pole and first through the Northwest passage.

You looking at Shackleton or Scott or any of these people or any really anybody in, in, in history that, that they're just, they're one of, and one of the things we learned as well, which was interesting was none of them had an easy. Path. They, we look at people today and I think we often glamorize that, Oh, someone, you know, someone was successful because it was really easy for them.

And when you look at someone like Teddy Roosevelt, born into a wealthy family, could have he was very intelligent. He was very sickly as a young boy. He could have just put his feet up and. I just wanna indulge my, my fascination with the natural world and [00:13:00] collect rocks and insects and, and study mammals and, and birds and, and all the things that he was fascinated by.

But he decided that's not the life he wants to lead. He wants to live, lead a life that gives back to. To the world and went into politics. So it's an interesting thing. You think, Well then, yeah, but even for him, it must have been easy. And it was, you know, the press was brutal to him as, as a presser today.

And, and, and so people, we look at them and they be like, Oh wow, that guy had an easy, that woman had an easy, and it's not like that they had. Real, honest to God challenges that they, they overcame and all of them brunel allinson, all these people had real, real obstacles that they constantly hit. But what was different about them was that they were able to overcome them, or they saw them with a different mindset than, than most people do.

Scott: I, there's, there's something that, there's a guy called Astro Teller. He runs Google. [00:14:00]Google. It used to be Google X. And I think one of your things you are saying is we're gonna try something. If it doesn't work, that's fine. Because we are gonna learn on the way.

Brad: Exactly, exactly

Scott: we are. Well, and the story he talks is about is when Google were creating their drive driverless car and he's talk about the driver's car and he is having an, they're doing it.

And they came from this assumption goes, this goes back to what you're talking about, the pan maar. There was an a canal. Sorry, There was an assumption built into that. That we would have some level of control still as drivers. Like people say, You're not gonna, we're not gonna be fully autonomous. We're gonna have some level of control.

He said, But when they actually got to the point of testing people in the car, they realized that no people didn't do that. The, actually, the behavior of people was, I'm not driving this and now I, I will not stay alert cuz they just, they just won't do it. So they then had to go back to the drawing. And the key assumption that whole design ethos was built on was changed overnight.

And it's their willingness to say, Okay, doesn't work here. It won't work in its present format. And it's either, it's [00:15:00] too big an obstacle, so we do then have to learn to ditch, ditch it, or we still think we can overcome that obstacle by doing it this way.

Brad: Yes, yes. You can't, you've gotta bake human. Nature into these things and, and you can't just, just automatically assume that that people will always make the right decision.

And yeah. One of the things, actually, one of the interesting ar areas that I've gotten involved in is disaster. Response management and emergency management. So I've been writing articles for a magazine called Crisis Response Journal, which is for people who are the, when there's a flood, earthquake tornado, hurricane, whatever, that these are the people who set up the.

That either they're working for charities or working for government. They're working for private sector, they're working for nonprofits. They're, they're the people come in and try to try to support humanity and the, the masses of people who are affected by these, these natural disasters. And what I'm trying to do is draw the lessons from [00:16:00] people like Shackleton and Scott and SSON and, and Roosevelt and different people into helping crisis managers look at how these people are from history and look at crises.

And it's, it's an, it's a, it's a different application to, to decision making. You've gotta take into account how humans make decisions. And I got drawn into this area because when I was in graduate school and I was studying decision sciences, the, I got involved working for a professor, and the professor was doing a.

This is many years ago, and the study was about floods and earthquakes and saying, public policy is based on the idea that, and lets talking about America, that people may live in a flood prone area, but if the government offers low cost flood insurance, they'll buy it because there, if the house is risk of flooding, Well, it would make sense, Wouldn, if you know the flood insurance isn't too expensive, you think people living in front point areas, they know they're in the [00:17:00] flood front areas, they'll naturally buy the insurance.

The whole organization will work well because people are insured against this risk. And what our study showed was people don't behave rationally. And when we get down to these low probability situations and a flood and earthquakes, low probability situation, even a flood print area, The people don't behave rationally.

They'll, they'll take a low probability and, and discount it down to almost zero. . But alternatively, when you look at a lottery, people look at a lottery ticket and being like, Well, of course I'm, I could win when the odds are so much greater at not win. You know, the, the, the, when is a really, really low probability, for example, winning lottery.

Mm-hmm. , we up that probability. And so humans have this real mix of how we deal with things. So with the driver, less cars is, is the same thing, which is you might think, well, people behave rational. They'll always be looking out for their, their safety. And if everybody is, [00:18:00] is no, we're actually really good at tuning things out, or misjudging or saying, Well, the probability, the, the driver, the autonomous car will work properly.

Is enough that I can just tune out. So it's so, yeah, so it's, it's interesting when you're looking at human nature and looking at policy and looking at how do you deal with things, whether it's floods and earthquakes, whether it's adventure explorers and things

Scott: like, I think that's the question, isn't it?

Don't, don't do what you think people should do, but what people are actually gonna do. And there is a difference.

Brad: Yes. Yes. There great difference. And I think it's real. It's, and that's what's absolutely fascinating is that you and, and it is, it is often hard to predict. And that's sort what, what leads to trends and fads and, and different things when you think, I

Scott: think that as a game in psychology called the ultimatum game And I, I can't remember if I can get, I've gotta try and explain this to people who aren't, cause I can't draw it.

So imagine you're, you're in pairs, so you've got a group of pairs. So you might be B and rba, and I've got a hundred dollars and I'm a, And I say to you, I [00:19:00] don't say to you, You get an offer from me of how many. So I might say to you, I'm gonna give you so many dollars. Out of that a hundred. You have a choice, you accept it or don't.

Okay? So just automating me either gonna say yes or no. There's no negotiations. There's no communication. If you say yes, We both get what was agreed. If you say no, we both get nothing. So unless you were offered zero, logically you should say yes to everything because it's a, is financially beneficial for you.

Even if I say, Well, I'll give you $1, you say yes, you're gonna walk away with a dollar you didn't have. I'll walk away with 99, but you'll walk away with the one. But I believe it's a around about 35%. Once people drop below 35% of. Being offered. So anything under $35 out the hundreds, the, the amount of no expense goes up.

Wow. Okay. So that decision is based, I, I believe that decision is based on fairness. People saying, So I think in organizations, whatever [00:20:00] decisions say, Well, they should say yes, they can be a benefit from, they say, Well, if they say no, it might not, because they're not looking at the benefit, but they're looking, Well, I'm not letting you get away with it.

And if I have to suffer because of that, then that's fine. Great. Cause it's not there. And I don't want to be party to an unfair decision that I'm on end of mm-hmm. . Yeah.

Brad: Yeah. And we see this in business all sort, or in all sorts of different ways. I was talking with somebody the other day about, remember the Blackberry phones with the little keyboards on them and how Blackberry's like, Whoa, we're gonna focus on making the keyboard better and better and better because people are saying these long emails with our, with our phones.

And then all of a sudden the world just changed to text messages. And I think there was a story that. The person or the small team that invented text messages thought no one would ever use them. They're like, Well, we can do this thing, but probably never take off. And, and Blackberry went out of business because their, their focus was on something that was like, you know, e sending emails by phone was not as much fun as sending [00:21:00] by phone.

And you could do that without the fancy keyboard.

Scott: Yeah. I, I think there, there history litter didn't there with people who made decisions, they. Decisions based on information they had about predicts in the future. And those decisions turned out to be less than ideal. And it's then again, it's how quickly can that organization, that person, that then realize that they're on the wrong path.

Brad: Yeah. Surpri surprising. How many don't realize that? I mean, Google and Apple are very good at at, at realizing, oh, we're taking the wrong path and we they course correct. And then you look at places like Blockbuster. Blockbuster had a chance to buy net Netflix for $50 million and turned it down because at that point, they were opening one new store every 17 hours.

They were just going into every high street in the UK and the US and, and just you and, and they thought, who, you know, Netflix is just some online streaming service. We don't need this. [00:22:00]We, you know, it's, and, and, And then you look at, at other situations, whether it's you know, book sellers getting preempted by Amazon, whether it's but there's so many examples of, you know, even, even Kodak and Kodak actually invented the digital camera.

Which is sort of not always known because people are like, Well, Kodak was just doing film, but that was their focus. They were doing film and then a team within the Kodak realized they could make digital cameras, and the company was so focused on making film. They're like, No, no, that's just, that's never gonna take off.

Okay. But they never went back to it. They didn't go back to it quick enough or, or fast enough. But then other companies do, I mean, like Apple, hp, a lot of companies haven't made mistakes and, and of course

Scott: corrected. I don't, I don't think there's a journey where there hasn't been, Oops. Yeah, along the track, isn't it?

There's gonna be bumps along. So things happen that we don't expect or we say when we have got all the information available to us. And yes, we [00:23:00] say we, we, we believe we are good at decisions, but in some ways we are quite flawed in our decision making process. So there's a book called Thinking Fas, either Think Fast, Think so, or Thinking Fast Thinking.

Yeah. Think. Yeah. Right. And he talked about and the amount of information you said, like you said, we've got so much information we zone lots out and we kind of go into autopilot to make decisions. And sometimes these complicated decisions we simp. Then it's easier for us to make them cuz we like elections.

He talks about elections as a result and we kind of said, you like this person or that person. That's how we kind of make a choice, not really looking at the manifesto and the policies too much.

Brad: Yes. I mean, if there's playing out without getting too much into policy instead of playing out big time in the US right now with the Supreme Court decisions and the fact that people are like, Oh, I can't believe they just did this, you know, to returning Roe v.

Wade and. It was so clear that the, the, it was, but people wanted to photogenic or they didn't feel Hillary was photogenic enough or, or [00:24:00] it, it, she didn't have the right persona for, for television or whatever. It's, it's just, it's fascinating how you'll make decisions. They make decisions about, Things.

They vote on things, they do things, jobs they take, and we do this all the time. And relationships. Mm-hmm. , there's a fascinating book by Malcolm Gladwell and I'm trying to think of the name of it, but it's, it's about the idea that. We are actually, as humans are not, we think we're really good judges of character.

We think we meet someone, we can assess them, assess them, or assess them out within a few seconds. And what he approves in this book over and over and over again is we're actually terrible at that. And our ability to dilute ourselves, I think, Oh, that person looks like a criminal. That person looks like they're a good person.

That person looks like they'd be a, a kind, generous person, and they're trying to be, be a rat bag or a crook or a an evil doer. And, and, and it's, [00:25:00] but we're actually actually very bad at, at, at judging. Other humans and it's and I mean there are many, many high profile cases he go, There's one very interesting one about a CIA spy, a spy who was in the cia.

And he think all these people in the CIA would absolutely know. If there was a spy among, among them, and they didn't. The person was just so good at hiding it and everyone just assumed, well, she seems like a nice person. She does all sort of nice things and, and does her work, and she's really commended and she like commended by the president, one of the presidents this going back 20 or 30 years.

But, you know, one of the presidents will, you know, she got, gave her like some fast award and it's like, and yeah, at the same time she has a complete spy. For Cuba. It's like, you know, and, and you know, everyone just just assumed that, Oh, it's just you a nice person. It's, they must

Scott: be nice. And so we have these flaws.

All of us have these flaws in our decision making process. And you've looked at things in the past about people who, yes, they've had their [00:26:00] flaws and we've talked, they're not perfect characters, but they've created. Amazing outcomes through decision making process and their resilience. So what do you think are the key things that sort of maybe stands in the part or the key lessons that you've learned?

I think one,

Brad: one of them is that they're very good at building teams that have very simple goals. Mm-hmm. like a single goal. And that goal of, of whether it's Amison taking a team of, of seven people through the Northwest passage. Northwest passage is a was the sea route that has been desired for over 400 years.

And, and famous people like Sir John Franklin and all these different, Henry Hudson, all these different explorers and adventures, tried to find it, which is literally a sea route that goes from from Greenland across Northern Canada. To the top of Alaska, to Asia, and no one can see no one because they're all the little islands and all [00:27:00] these ice formations and it's very hard to, it was impossible for people to find a, a secret through and am is like, he studies it and studies it and go like, the secret to this is a small team with a single purpose, which is we're going sale a various, Everyone's like, No, you can't take a small ship through that sort of ice crusted, you know, all these islands, A lot of unmapped areas.

and yeah, there, there are places where this, the water is so shallow, you, you, that you only have a few inches of water that you're, you're, you know that. And so a small boat can sail better than a big boat. But it's, it's, it's just a fascinating story of someone saying, Oh, you know what the, the, the secrets A small team that's very focused with a mixture of, you know, typically these teams were all white males.

But he, the teams were diverse in that some people were naval people, some people were scientists, some people, they had all these different skills and he was able to form me Teams, Shackleton did the same, [00:28:00] kept us gotten into the same, He formed teams that are made up of multiple different types of skills and backgrounds, different nationalities.

Then and, and as we said in the Antarctic and. With Amison and the Northwest Ps there happening to be all white males, but within that structure, they were, they were quite diverse. And so diversity singleness of purpose was, were key, key elements.

Scott: So, so for leaders today, say, like, look at your team, say, how can you then bring those, that diversity, the strengths within that team, into that team to say, it may not be, Gender diversity.

You may not have racial diversity, but you do have cognitive diversity and skills based.

Brad: right now. What's interesting is that so, so sometimes we think of diversity as just being, well, we're just ticking boxes. Mm-hmm. So we've gotta have different people. And what our studies showed [00:29:00] is that it's not about ticking boxes.

And a few of, there are many other studies that by other people have done this as well, which is that that diversity gives you diversity of. Gives you diversity of reactions. So where one, one person, if you took a all people being very homogenous, they may all react in the same way as opposed to someone else saying, Wait a minute, what about this alternative or that alternative or, or what if we took this approach or that approach?

And so diversity gives you strength. It does is not just a box of tick exercise. The more homogenous the groups were, the more challenges they had. And we saw that you see this in some of the various Antarctic and Arctic expeditions. Like why the, the ones we studied there were six. There were two by Shackleton, two by Scott.

One by Robinson, one by Mosson that we studied in our first book. They were quite diverse in terms of, of being this, this mix of scientists and military people and, and other people as well. So it's what [00:30:00] Chap, you know, one of his exhibitions that still awake. So it's like, so then you got, there's like random guy, he just shows up because he's been starving in a closet for a couple days and then when they, they're heading down towards Antarctica.

This guy, this young man staggers out of, out of the, the closet being like, you know, I'm one still on the ship. And what's funny, the good Shackleton did say here, so this, that slightly over. Young man and Shackleton drags him up on deck when a friend of all the other men and says I'd throw you overboard if I could, but I can't.

But I'll tell you, if we ever get into trouble, you'll be the first one we eat. And ,

Scott: that's, that gives somebody confidence. Isn't that, Sit again, Please don't get into trouble. Please don't get into trouble. Right. Great. Cost quite high. Exactly. Okay, so we've got a diverse group and I, I totally agree with you and I'm, I'm a great fan of inclusion and getting people involved in.

If you want a system to change or a system to evolve, get the system involved in the conversation which comes from like appreciative inquiry and appreciate, appreciate those people around you [00:31:00] and sort of dig out their strengths and encourage 'em. Okay, And this singleton, of course, a very clear purpose.

What are we doing? What we're

Brad: trying to achieve? There was one other thing as well, which was they always had a second in command. Mm-hmm. . Even in a small team, sometimes even in a team with three people, you'd have a team lead and you'd have a person who was the second in command. Now whether that was designated as a second in command or whether it was.

Sort of just a facto based on the person's experience or knowledge or, or skills. And especially in situations where you had seven or eight people and you had a team and you had a second in command, you'd be like, Why do you need a second in command is such a small team. The what was happening, and actually I've, I worked, the company I worked for prior to retiring was.

German software company and so like a hundred thousand people in the company. But the, the team I was in was fairly small and I was reporting someone who was a second command and, but I often also report to his boss. And so I had this sort of strange structure, but I was very similar to [00:32:00] what was in the Antarctic was, was that you could go to the second command and say, I don't really understand this task.

Now, I wouldn't necessarily wanna go to my boss and say that the boss's or his boss or I wouldn't wanna go higher up in the company and say, I don't really understand this task I, but you might wanna say, Hey, I don't understand this task, or, I don't like this person I need to work with. Or, We've got this inter personal conflict that we need resolution on.

You can go the second in command. Without bothering the main guy. Mm-hmm. . And the main, main moment, and, and I think this is where this second command structure works really well in that it gives you the ability to take a grievance, take a challenge, take a problem, and resolve it without. Someone going like, So that's a ding on your mark cuz you don't know how to do that.

Or you're just a troublemaker or you're just, or you're just lazy or, or it's just not getting done and all of a sudden you, the person's procrastinating. Procrastinating cuz they, they haven't [00:33:00] been able to say to someone, I don't know how to do this. And all of a sudden the deadline hits. And it's not done, or it's not done well.

So it's just like a, it's a, So that's another, another criteria, another method that they used.

Scott: So have a deputy second in command, somebody that people feel comfortable talking to and approaching with. Some of the, I'd say maybe more operational day to day issues. They're, they're, they're facing. Exactly.

Exactly. And then, so then the person in the leads is, is doing the, say, the more leadership strategic type of stuff and not getting bogged down into that operational stuff. Right. Oh, and then any micromanages listening. Any micromanages listening today. Right. Okay. We're gonna add something

Brad: else. Right. And and one of the other things was, was never giving up.

I think it's not about, N not when you hit a dead end, it's not like saying, Okay, this is a dead end. [00:34:00] I'm going to stop. It's like this is a dead end. I'm gonna try something else. And so this never giving up. It's not necessarily saying You're gonna go on a straight line. I'm just gonna keep going, going, going, going to like collapse.

It's going to keep going. Then I'm going to hit obstacle and maybe I'll try to break through that obstacle, but maybe I'll need to go rounded obstacle or maybe I need to change, change course completely. And I think we, we saw this with some of the things Brunelle was doing. We saw it with some of the things Roosevelt was doing and, and the explorers that, that the, the main thing was perseverance.

It was, but perseverance doesn't mean just bang your head into a wall at time, after time, after time. It's trying to be like, Okay, I've tried and now I've hit this wall, and now I'm going to turn sideways and try to get another route through. and, and I mean that there are very real instances of that where you hit a CVAs field and [00:35:00] you're trying to go through a, a glacier and there are CVAs and you go like, Okay, we just need to start going sideways.

We can't go through, don't wanna fall on kvass. So we just need to start going sideways until we get by away from the kvass field. Mm-hmm. , which is sort of a visual way of thinking out, but those sorts of similar sorts of things happen in, in all rocks of life.

Scott: Okay, so we come a against something perhaps we weren't expecting or some challenges.

And it's not necessarily saying, Right, this is the path I on, I'm not gonna change. So we say, would it be something like sailing? So, you know, like I've gotta go over there and I'm here. That's the route we've picked, but the wind's changing or something's happened, so we've gotta attack and adapt.

Brad: Yes, exactly.

Exactly. But it doesn't mean you give up and it doesn't. And so even when we look at Shackleton's, Story of getting to, trying to get to the South Pole and saying, We're not gonna get there, but we're gonna, we're gonna plant the flag at 96, 97 miles from the South Pole. We're gonna go [00:36:00]back, We're gonna live to see another day.

We're gonna set another expedition. We're gonna try again. And it's like, you know, so, So, yeah. So we didn't make it this time. , but we achieved something and now we're gonna go back and, and try again. And it may be several years that we get a chance to try again. But it is that sense of, of constantly trying effect there.

There's a wonderful story of, of in the, from the endurance expedition where the ship gets crushed in the ice and the men end up getting stranded on it's long story to get them to the, where you've got 22 men stranded on Elephant Island, which is an uninhabited. Large well basically large rock in, in near Antarctica.

And Shackleton and, and five other men take one of the largest of the, of this lifeboat. And the largest lifeboat was only 23 feet long across 800 miles to the roughest seas of the world and sail at the South Georgia, which is an island that isn inhabited. They get to the island that isn't inhabited [00:37:00]after 17 days.

You know, terrible storms and, and terrible conditions. And they arrive and they arrive on the wrong side of the island, the uninhabited side. So they have to three of them, of the six men. Three. Stay with the, the small boat and three walk across the uninhabited, unmarked, uncharted mountains to get to the whaling village.

I think, Okay, well then everybody's saved, aren't they? Because you've got the 22 men on Elton Island. You've got the other three on the uninhabited side of South Georgia, and you've got the whaling Village on South Georgia, and the whalers can just sail around. They could easily rescue the other three men, but you still have the 22 men on Elephant Island.

So the whaler set off in a ship to go rescue the 22 men on the Elephant Island 800 miles away and they can't get near Elephant Island cuz all ice in they, So they and Shackleton goes, they go back and so Shackleton, so that's first attempt. [00:38:00] Shack gets another ship, tries again. They can't get near Elephant Island through of the ice.

Tries again, gets another ship. And he is going across like, he, he starts in South Georgia, then he is at, in the Falkland Islands, trying to get his ship. Then he is in Argentina and, and UA trying to get a ship. Eventually they do. It took four efforts. Before they rescued the men on Elton Island. I mean these, it's like, this is the, you know, just cure, keep persevering.

He wasn't gonna give up until he got his men rescued, but it wasn't gonna, it wasn't easy. It's like, and these sort of, you know, these sort things are sort of inspirational cuz, cuz we do hit obstacles. We, you know, the whole world hit obstacle with, with covid. Now we've been obstacle with, with Ukraine war in a way that, you know, our, our economies are suffering.

Our, we're dealing with inflation, we're dealing with all the, all these high costs of things and being like, Okay, well that's not really what I planned for, but we just gotta deal with it. You know, Just try again, Try something else. Try.

Scott: So, I think, I think one of the things that I, [00:39:00] it strikes me is that what they, that it comes across within the stories you've told is what they do is say it, I heard this so many times.

It is what it. We are where we are. The thing is, where do we go next?

Brad: Yes. They were very good at saying precisely that, which is not blaming. It's just this is where we are today. And how do we put one foot in front of the next and move forward in some way? And I think this is, you know, this was the, the lesson out of Covid.

Mm-hmm. was, you know what? We can look at the dreams and ambitions we had in 2018, 2019 and say, Well, we can't do all that. You know, can't, can't get back to the life we had in 2019. We're just freewheeling. Just, you know, everyone just traveling where they want and going where they want, not worrying about getting covid.

I know so many people who in the last two months have gotten covid and, and it, it's hasn't gone away. And it's just bit like this. You know, just persevering through and being, [00:40:00] I can't get the life I had, I'll just persevere through with the life I've got. Mm-hmm. , same with inflation. It's like, you know, Okay, sorry.

Cut that. You, the, the, for me, cuz now I'm trying to live off my income as an author. It's trying to say, Okay, now I need to reduce my spending. That's right. That, that's what me, it's a p. Decision, it's just temporary for well, inflammation's running high. And, and, and so it, so it's, we all have to make adjustments and I think it's just accepting that, that you can't always ha things can't go back to the way they were.

So you can't blame things. You can't say, Oh, I wish it was different. This is what it is here, Here we are in 2022. It is what it is.

Scott: It is what it is. What's happened has happened and mistakes have been made, and they probably will. Mistakes will be made. I think it's accepting. That big thing is it's about do we accept failure, learn from it, and move on.

So I think there's a lot within innovation, there seems to be a lot of sort of analogies about how these [00:41:00] men made these great impacts and wasn't an easy trip. And it was like perseverance, but also learning and then moving on. So from that lesson, what did I learn? How can, what am I gonna do differently next?

Exactly.

Brad: To try and make it. Exactly. Yeah. There's, there's a lot of great lessons to, to, to learn from, but it's very much that idea of trying not to focus on blame, not to focus on what could have happened and just be, okay, this is where I am today. How do we move forward?

Scott: The become changed the.

Brad: Yes. You can't change the past as we can

Scott: only influence where we go in the future,

Brad: right?

And we can't even predict that. And as we said the very beginning, we. , well, can't predict the future that well. So in a way you just have this present time and be answer a course correct and adjust as you go and just keep persing. And that was, that's probably the biggest lesson of all of it is this perseverance.

Mm-hmm. that that's resilience. [00:42:00] Perseverance and. And the World War and given, given my age we've seen cycles before. We've seen the, the economic downturn in in the 90. There was one in the nineties, there's one in 2008. These things were recurring and eventually the world Star gets through it and there are wars and people get through it.

And

Scott: So, Yep. I changed my job in 1990 recession. I went from a paid job to freelance in 2009. Recession. You thought I'd learn, wouldn't you? , Bit like you. Well it was just one of those things and then you just like, just, Oh, I could have chosen about time, I could have, I didn't. I'm here. Right.

Brad: Make it work.

Exactly. Exactly. And that's what, that's what makes life fascinating and, and. I mean, you've gotta see it as, as a, as a a game. Mm. And you've gotta see it as, as how do I manage within this, within these multitude of challenges and, and just keep [00:43:00] thinking positively and optimistically and, and

Scott: yeah, I think there's a cuz I do Clifton strengths and there's too strong, I've, I've got high positivity, which is always like looking at what could be rather than what has what. Not being, And also I've got high adaptability, which is, you know, I'm, I'm comfortable in the here and now. Mm-hmm. and this level of uncertainty.

So I do think one of the keys that perseverance and you say where we do is accept the level of uncertainty in which we actually do live. Yes. Been unusual in the last 10, 15 years. We've had a lot of certainty, which has been unused to say the cycles. We haven't had these cycles. Come back that used to be much more regular.

Yes.

Brad: Yes. And, and you, it's funny, when you look back at life and you think, you know, I know I was in America, my first mortgage was at 11% and the at that point you had savings and loans organizations that gave mortgages. And the banker there said to me, You'll never get a loan this low [00:44:00] ever again. And interest rates went all the way up to like 18.

and now they're down to like, you know, they, they came down to like 2%, 1% for mortgages at one point, and he was saying he was predicting their future. Like, you'll never see something lower than 11% and now it's gonna, and now sort of rising back up a bit. But there was something that I want to, to say that, that Shackleton was asked was, what are the traits of, do you need to be a polar explorer?

And he said there were optimism, patience, physical endurance, idealism, and courage. And I think that's sort of like a good sense of traits for, for 2022. Mm-hmm. .

Scott: So this is a question I've asked you before. And you were like, Oh, I dunno. Cause we can't predict the future. We've, we, So we, I'm going to ask this question on, I'm never gonna come back and say, this is what you said 10 years ago.

Okay. So we've, you've looked at great people in the past, people who have had a great impact and sort of shown all those traits. If you look back over the last five years or 10 years up [00:45:00] to today, who do you think might be, if you were to do this book again in a hundred years time, who do you think might be the people you would say, these are the leaders?

Of 20 20, 20 22, whatever this region, let's say, this level of uncertainty we've had that I would like to investigate, I would like to, to examine.

Brad: Great. There's, well, certainly Linsky is one of the most fascinating characters of someone who's, you know, not only transformed himself in the sense of being from a comedian to a dancer, to a an actor.

To being a president and actually being a statesman. And he actually moved this continuum and somehow commands the world's stage. It's, it's quite a remarkable transformation for a human being. And, and that, so he's, he's one I think definitely that. And certainly you see people like, I think Tim Cook at Apple is quite a fascinating [00:46:00] character because he's, he's not flamboyant and he is not out there as portraying himself as a visionary, and yet he runs a visionary company and I think that he's quite a, a sort of a soft spoken, enormously successful human being.

And, and I think that's that. And Apple's delves into all sorts of different, different avenues and, and everyone was predicting. In fact, I, I read a study once that said that at a point when Apple Stock jumped 80% in one year, No, probably 70% in one year, 80% of all the articles written about Apple were about how it's, it was fallen by the wayside.

It was not being innovative. It was so, a lot of people dis dissing Apple criticizing it, saying it was never gonna achieve anything. You know, after Steve Jobs died they lost their way. Samsung phones were better, whatever. It's like all these things. And, and yet Apple just kept performing and performing, [00:47:00] perform.

And I think the other is Elon Musk. I mean, he's quite a controversial character, but he's, he's clearly a visionary at one level and, and it's hard to assess him at this stage. I, he, I don't, you know, would he be like a brunelle? I'm not sure. The, I think we'd see, I think we'd easily say my last book was about an engineer explorer and a statesman.

Mm-hmm. . So you had almond sin as the Explorer and Brunelli engineer and Teddy Roosevelt as a statesman. Certainly you'd have zelensky as a statesman and perhaps Elon Musk or or Tim Cook as the engineer. I'm not sure who the explorer would be at this stage, but it's it's a fascinating, it's fascinating to look at at modern life in those terms.

Is there anyone that you'd, you'd,

Scott: I think quite controversial. I might go for some like Therea May. And why is that? I [00:48:00]think because she managed an extraordinary turbulent time in British politics coming in as only the second female leader of the party. Second. Prime Minister. And I think she kind of, and it might be controversial, I think she kind of got dropped in at the deep end big style because they said we're gonna have a referendum.

And as soon as they lost a referendum, then Prime Minister said, Right, I, I don't wanna deal with this. I'm off. And the party was split, so she was trying to manage a split part. But one thing I think about her, talk about the visionary and that stuff about the, and it being the perseverance and the, the sheer determination to do the right.

Yes, I, The circumstances in which she found herself I think would be quite an interesting thing, and how history might view her, I think might be slightly differently compared to how she was viewed currently. I

Brad: think that's interesting. That's very interesting. I hadn't thought of that. The yeah, certainly if they to look at, at Biden as and I think there's a lot to be commended about.

Biden is a very calm [00:49:00] reason approach with everyone saying, Oh no, you need to like take these knee jerk reactions to everything that's happening in the Supreme Court decisions and, and. Prosecuting Trump and all the different, different decisions and he's taking a very steady approach to, to things.

And I think there's some, Therea May was doing the same. I think she was trying to be a steady influence on something where people, where the press and everyone, everyone's asking for, for dramatic action. So it's interesting. It's, it's it's a fascinating. World that we live in,

Scott: I think. I think yes. I think that you could look back in this, this period of time, last 5, 5, 10, probably the next five years I sort, 10 years that decade.

Maybe the 2020s might be as such an interesting decade to look back on in the years. And I think there'll be, there'll be leaders or people who, as you say, Linsky came to the fall very, very quickly because of the circumstances, Ukraine war and how he, how he positively managed his. Way of [00:50:00] doing a very Churchillian, I think, in his approach.

And he is very, very good at Oratory. He can, he speaks well, we can engage with people and he says the actions he has is going down to the front line and actually being, being there at the front line with people.

Brad: Yes. See, I'm sorry. What he showed is some of what. Shackleton said was, you know, optimism and, and patience of physical endurance.

I mean, he just just showed this is bravery. When you look at him, look at Nial. These are people who are just so incredibly brave and we aren't used to seeing this level of bravery. We're used to seeing. People talking about being brave and you see adventures and mountain climbers and it's people doing adventuresome things, but in a world where there's communication in a world where there's, there's rescue and, and so a lot of these, yes, some, some, a adventurers and explorers do die in modern [00:51:00] times, but they do have And they do risky things, but there's a level of bravery that doesn't exist.

And I, and most of the people I've met, right, all of the, the people that have been Antarctic at. Adventurers today have said when I've seen them talk or I've talked with them, they said, We are, we are adventurous. We are not explorers in this Shackleton, Scott Robinson sense, we are not at pat risk.

And yet here we have in Zelensky, in the ney and some of the other people that here we have sheer honest to God bravery and is a fascinating thing just to see it in a world where we many. Haven't seen it in a while.

Scott: Mm. I think also the difference between leaders who say, and they, they do it from like, from a distance, from afar, Right.

This person is there.

Brad: Yeah. I mean, I, I seeing him, seeing Zelensky walk on the streets and, and of of the cities and in, in the Ukraine, it's just, [00:52:00] I'm always amazed. It's like it's, it's. Just very risky. It's, it's, Is bravery in

Scott: action, bravery, perseverance, a bit of patience, and he just keeps banging it.

He, he's and so's a very clear message

Brad: and yes, And one of the things, I think one of the lost arts is, or, or being a great order, and you saw this with, with Teddy Roosevelt, who always had these wonderful terms of phrase, and you had you see this with Zelensky, but with, and you had it with Churchi.

So the way we had Teddy Roosevelt in the early 19 hundreds, you had Churchill in the 1940s, and you've got Zelensky now. But this the, the terms of Frank Mike from Roosevelt with things like trying to achieve glorious triumphs, trying to kajo and encourage Americans at that time to say, The easy life is not what's desired.

The people who make a mark in, in the world are the people who are not sitting in armchairs. They're [00:53:00] people out there getting beat up in, as he would call in, in the arena. You're the, he wrote, he had this great speech called The Man in the Arena, but it's like the person in the arena, the person who's out there getting beat up.

It's not the critics who are criticizing them is the people who are out there and they may not succeed. And, and he had a great phrase called mu dare mighty things that you've just gotta keep going out and persevering, persevering and trying and doing things and, and daring to be great and, and you might fail along the

Scott: way.

I think it's great. I'm gonna try cause I can't remember. There's the, the film, The Darkest Hour, I think it's the Darkest Hour, which is about coming into 1939 and his speech at par. And it somebody, and everyone's like clapping and things going up and somebody says, What's he done? And he says, He's just mobilized the English language.

Brad: Well, that's precisely, and I think we don't have enough of that today. We don't have, we've got Lansky's trying to do it, but [00:54:00] he's But in the, in the western world, the in, in the world, that is American Britain. Where we don't have that great order today. There's no one that's, that is is that Churchillian person right now that And we need that.

Scott: Yeah. Cause that, that, that again cuz people who can articulate the vision and put it in the word and tell stories and do it in a way that resonates, gets people so much more. Yes. And yeah, we could, we could argue about possibly why a made this thing about soundbite politics. We talk about this and we could talk about that.

people still will, if somebody can get up and give arousing speech.

Brad: Yes, absolutely. I think that JFK was able to do this to some degree. Mm-hmm. and yeah. Cause it's, it's a, it's a rare skill and it's a skill that probably needs to be taught more to, to young people. That ability to, to to speak and, and to, to inspire.

Scott: And is it through stories? Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. Great. [00:55:00] Thanks. Pleasure. Just saying thank you very much for your time. I think that's a nice thing to finish on actually. The, the ability to actually articulate and speak and inspire people is probably something you've always got from the past and there are people currently doing it, but the few and far between, and it's, and it may be the way we communicate now with more text, more videos, more this, more that, and everything's the, the, we don't practice that skill as much, so that's maybe why it's less, it's less prevalent.

Learn from the past. Then from the past. Totally, yes. Right. Okay. So, but again, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Well, thanks very

Brad: much, Scott. You're welcome.

In this episode my guest is Melissa Boggs. Melissa helps leaders and employees design an intentional employee experience that bridges the cultural and generational gap between them, increasing engagement and inviting joy for all.

The key to engagement is not “fixing” employees or leaders, but enriching the relationship between them. I help design organizational structures and cultures that amplify the strengths of everyone, changing hearts and minds about what is possible at work.

Melissa shares her experiences and thoughts on creating mutually, trusting relationships that bridge the gap between leaders and employees.

Melissas website: http://melissaboggs.com/

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Transcript

Scott: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of how might we, and in this episode, Mike guest is Melissa and we will be talking about how might we create mutually beneficial relationships. So welcome, Melissa, would you like to introduce your.

Melissa: Hello, thank you for having me. Sure. My name is Melissa Boggs.

I'm a keynote speaker and a leadership coach. I focus on employee experience design, and I work with leaders and their teams to bridge the gap between them. And like you said, build mutually beneficial relationships at work.

Scott: Okay. So, I mean, I, I like playing around with the trust and I think that's sort of the.

And a big thing about leadership is having those relationships with people that are, that are two way rather than just a one way. Whereas you think this staff have to do stuff for us to trust them, but it's much more, the other way is as important the other way around as well.

Melissa: Absolutely. And I think this is one of the things [00:01:00] that we can miss sometimes as leaders is we have to show up first in fact, because we have.

The, you know, greater power in the power dynamic, we must take the first step toward trust. We must be the first ones to live our values and, you know, show up and be transparent as much as we can. When we do that as leaders, then it opens the door and allows, you know, our, our teams and our teammates to do

Scott: the same.

Okay. So is that like us being role models, leadership, as in the, with role models, this is what we would like people to do. And this is how we are going to act, demonstrate what it's like

Melissa: in a way. I mean, that's part of it, but I would say also, it's just simply that when, when you have the power in a dynamic, you know, then you have to open the door first.

[00:02:00] If. If you don't humanize yourself, , you know, and become approachable, then you can't have an expectation that someone who is. You know, watching you is going to make themselves, I guess that's what it's about. It's about vulnerability, right? If you don't make yourself vulnerable as the one who has more power in a relationship, you cannot possibly expect someone else to make themselves vulnerable either.

One of my favorite stories when I was the co CEO of scrum Alliance, I was quite new in that role. And. Consider myself to be a humble leader and a leader who listens, et cetera, et cetera. And so I kept using this phrase. So my title was actually chief scrum master, and I kept saying to people, okay, I'm gonna take off my chief hat.

and my intention was like, Hey, like we're just two people. I just wanna listen, you know, tell me what you're thinking, et cetera, et cetera. And [00:03:00] I remember so clearly sitting down with this in a one-on-one with this dear woman, and she was maybe a bit older than me, more experienced and. But yet she was my employee.

And so we're having this conversation and I used that phrase. I said, okay, I'm gonna take my chief hat off. And I want you to, you know, be honest, like tell me, et cetera, et cetera. And she goes, she puts her hand on my arm. Like it was so gentle and kind, but she was like, honey, I need you to understand that.

No matter how many times you say that you cannot take off your chief hat, no matter what you say, you are still the person who signed my paycheck. And that was like a ton of bricks. I mean, that was a slap in the face, not from her, but like the, the reality of it that I, I can't just be like, oh, you know, just be real [00:04:00] with me.

I have to be real with them. First. I have to be vulnerable with them first. I have to. Kind of work double time to create a safe place for us to have a discourse because no matter what I say, you know, I have the power in the relationship. It, it, I had the power in that relationship. And so we can think that we're the cool leader, but actually like we have to work extra hard to create that relationship and, and space in that relationship.

Scott: So it's interesting cause you hear it quite a lot or don't just imagine I'm not the CEO either, but in reality you can't cuz you always are.

Melissa: Exactly. Exactly. And again, that was a big awakening for me. I, I remember just thinking, like, no matter what I do, there's a weight to my opinions, so I need to not share them unless it's important.

You know, if, if they're just opinions that actually, [00:05:00] maybe I need to hold them and give other people space because whether I like it or not, there's a weight.

Scott: I mean, that's an interesting word. So apart from that sort of holding back your opinions, unless you thought it was important for you to express an opinion, what other impacts do you think the insight you got from that your, your member of staff's?

Just that, as you say, sometimes that one comment just hit you like a ton of bricks and then you had to reevaluate so many things.

Melissa: So that was the main one to be honest was just like the weight of my opinions. And. Often when, when I was saying things like that, like, oh, pretend I'm not the CEO or, oh, I'm taking off my cheat hat.

It was just because I just wanted to say something like, I just wanted to like babble off some words. And so when I found myself about to say that I would ask myself, like, is it really important for me to say this right now? You know, even if it's an important thought to share at some point, is it important [00:06:00] right now?

And. It made a difference in like the space that I was creating because I would, I would just wait and I would hold it. Again, in order to make space, it's not that my opinions were not important or, you know, the leader is no longer valuable, obviously, you know, there's value. But if we're talking about wanting to hear from our teams and our teammates, we have to recognize that you.

Leaders spin the conversation whether they want to or not. So if you're gonna say, okay, I wanna know if everyone likes fruit lobes better or Cheerios. I like fruit lobes better. What do you think everyone's gonna say? right. Let's realize I use very American-centric cereals, but but you know, you're gonna swing the conversation one way or another.

If you go. And so I think that was one of the things that, that kind of said to me is I couldn't go, I wanna know, you know, if everyone likes fruit loops or Cheerios, I'm gonna take off my chief [00:07:00] hat and tell you that I like fruit loops does not make a difference. Everyone's gonna say fruit loops, not everyone, but you know, you're gonna sway the conversation, whether you realize it or.

Scott: Okay. So you've had, so having that sort of, that create that space pausing, and the question is, yeah, I've got an opinion, but is it necessary right now? Mm-hmm I think is it, is it so that's, do you think it's a really important question for us to ask ourselves before we express an opinion or a thought?

Melissa: I think so. And actually, I think that's true of everyone, but just especially of executive leaders who are trying to create.

Scott: Okay. So being aware of the moment and saying, is this appropriate for this moment in time to, or will it damage that space that we're trying to create? So how did you find that your staff started to, to respond to you now that you've created that space for them, and you were creating that space and withholding your opinion to you thought it was necessary to express it?

Melissa: It took time for sure. But eventually[00:08:00] I did start to hear more from them. You know, I did start to hear their creativity and their ideas, which frankly were often better than my. I might have been like holding something back and be like, oh, I have this idea. And then sometimes they would say exactly what I was thinking or sometimes what they said was even better.

And so, you know, a little mental, like pat on the back to myself, I'm like, Ooh, good job shutting up. Good job.

Scott: I wonderful managers could do that. Say how many times I can. I congratulate myself for being quiet or shutting up.

Melissa: Exactly. It's a new metric for leaders. It might be an amazing, yeah. Yeah. How many times can you be

Scott: quiet?

That would be an interesting thing for people to say, how many times did I actually manage to bite my tongue or shut up in a conversation.

Melissa: And, you know, the funny thing is that the, the more that I did it, the longer that I did it, the easier it became, because I started to see, oh, wait, that was a way better idea.

You know? Like, and so then it becomes easier to just [00:09:00] be quiet cuz you're like, okay, I've I've given them. So here's another important thing when you are going to. Keep quiet. I would focus on making sure that they had any context that I had. And another, another big thing I'm really big about is boundaries.

So if I want them to have, you know, their entre entrepreneurial spirit, and I want them to self organize and I want the team to have space to be innovative and creative. And I'm going to shut up then I need to make sure that they have context. They have the information that I have. They have the data that I have and then that they have boundaries.

And so I am good with anything you decide, you know, that is in this context and in these boundaries and then trust that and follow through with it. And. And be true to that, I guess. Cause often we'll say, oh, you make the decision and then they'll [00:10:00] make a decision that we wouldn't have made. And we just reverse it.

Like you can't do that. But giving them the context and giving them some boundaries and then just saying like, I trust you, like now I'm gonna follow you because I'd given you what's necessary to make a good decision. Now I'm gonna follow you down this path. And I learned so much by doing that because they, sometimes they're closer to the problem.

Sometimes they just have a different perspective. And so yeah, the more that we can shut up as long as we have given them what they need, which is what we generally have as leaders.

Scott: Okay. So the context and the boundaries. So I just wanna, we'll talk about those two separate. I'm gonna go the reverse order, cuz the boundaries fascinate me a little bit more than the context.

His context is generally data isn't it's information that we have. But the boundaries, I think are an interesting concept to look at. So when you talk about setting boundaries, obviously about these relationships you've done in your experience as a [00:11:00] CEO and what you do by going into organization and helping them create these relationships, what types of boundaries do you think are the more effective or efficient ways of doing that?

That was a really poor question. That was a really bad, I got you question. We're good. Really badly phrased question. So

Melissa: there's, there's two types of boundaries in my mind. I'm sort of making this up on the spot actually, but when you ask the question, I was thinking of like, there's the boundaries within like the specific problem we're trying to solve or the specific, you know, idea that we're trying to hatch, so to speak.

And so when it comes to that, it might be something. I always use numbers. It's gonna sound strange, I think, but when I'm talking to leaders about it, I say, whatever one and three is, right. You say to your team, if whatever decision you come up with, this is the outcome I want. And as long as it's between one and three, I [00:12:00] am going to support the decision period.

Right? Don't say one in six. If you're not gonna be able to support it between three and six, right. If it's too wild or too big or too broad. So first of all, you have to be able to set boundaries that you were going to be willing to commit to and be true to no matter what happens. And, you know, I'm using numbers very generically, but it might be something like, you know, as long as I'm thinking about software, as long as it achieves this outcome and, and users are able to do this, then I don't care how you get there.

I don't care what the solution is, as long as they can do this at the end, but don't say don't give some big, broad thing, you know, as long as it can. Turn on. I don't care what it does after that, when you're not gonna be able to support [00:13:00] that. Because the number one thing, in my opinion, that causes distrust is when we give people authority and then we reverse it.

So we say, here, go do this. And then they come back after working really hard on something, pouring their sweat and tears into something. And then the leader either. Completely reverses it or nitpicks it to death, you know, and like basically undoes everything that people have done. They will never be innovative again, at least not with you, if that's how you treat it.

So you have to be careful about the boundaries that you set. And make sure that you can be committed to them. And then the other kind of boundaries are sort of more principle based boundaries. And those might be something more like. Here is how, you know, like a set of core values that can be like a principle set of boundaries.

This is how I wanna see you all work together. [00:14:00] Or this is how I want you to interact with me based on these core values. And I think those are really important too, cuz often it's not just what we build or you know, what we create, but how and how we go about it in the company.

Scott: Yeah, I'm glad you went to values.

Cause I think that's where I was gonna go with the boundaries cause I think they give you so value is a guideline. Isn't it? Where the rules, sometimes a black or white is at least a value is something that I can operate within that, which gives them quite a lot of freedom, but also means that there's a level of consistency in how we work, but freedom the sake.

But I know also that thing about being very clear about what you are going to agree. Is what you are willing to agree to or capable of agreeing to. So I think understanding your own levels of acceptance, and also, I suppose, as a leader, where does your authority lie? Mm-hmm so what can you actually say?

Yes, no matter what you do, I can sign it off and make sure that what you are telling you can sign off is something you actually have the authority to do. So as well. [00:15:00]

Melissa: Exactly. And one thing I hear a lot is the reverse of that, which is what am I allowed to say no, to. And making that very clear. And then again, backing them up when they say no to something, because there's nothing worse than, okay.

We don't ever want everyone to be overworked. We want everyone to have work life balance. So you're allowed to say no to something. And then the minute you say no to a customer or a client, the boss goes, oh no, we can make that work. We'll figure it. Like wait, but so the authority to say no to something is also super important.

Scott: Never thought of that. I think that's a really good perspective. What do we say? No. And some of it's interesting was in a, had a conversation with somebody the other day. And the CEO was like outlining where they wanted the organization to go and what the priorities were. And then as we were talking said, see what the CEOs just.

He said, I now feel under pressure when I take work off time off work, because the two thing people he said were really important. The people I serve in my department [00:16:00] mm-hmm so although the CEO, if you listen to, it sounded really good. It's the, the impression that gives of where the priorities for that business now lie and the person who's responsible for delivering that now feels under an awful lot of pressure.

Melissa: Absolutely. And that is where we need to really focus on. I'd say cross functionality or something of that nature. Rich Sheridan has a book called joy, Inc. And he talks about single towers of knowledge and how we should not have single towers of knowledge. Right. That, that some people talk about getting hit by a bus.

I hate that phrase, but like if someone won the lottery tomorrow or, you know, came into an inheritance tomorrow, We can't be in trouble, you know, that knowledge needs to live in multiple people. And I think that applies to simple things like vacation as well. And so if, if that one gentleman, you know, shared that the burden of that knowledge with [00:17:00] other people, then he's more likely to be able to go and take that vacation regardless of what the strategic goals are.

Scott: Thanks. I think. That comes back to what we're saying about the relationships as well. And that vulnerability say, we don't expect you to do it, but we, as an organization or as a leader, need to find ways of building that capacity and capability in our teams. 100%.

Melissa: I

Scott: love that. And so it's not just about, oh, I'm gonna train somebody to do a job.

It's say, okay, how can I train the team to perform well? And I say, if somebody goes sick which is something can. If somebody, I, I like your analogy of winning the lottery. Let's look at the positive side rather than getting hit by a bus, which is quite, quite a negative thing. I don't really wanna be hit by a bus winning the lottery.

Probably more likely, no, probably less likely to happen, but probably more a positive outcome, but the, the, the impact on the business still the same, somebody's leaving.

Melissa: Sure exactly. Yeah. I love, I use this phrase all the time because it gives you this visual of like this person sort of standing alone, you know, single tower of [00:18:00] knowledge with all of this inside of them.

That if it disappears, Like we're in trouble. And so, yeah, I love the idea of teaching the team. You know, my background is in the, the agile movement and in scrum and we talk a lot about cross functionality and that doesn't mean that every single person on the team does every job. There's a, a notion about T-shaped people where, you know, I might be a have deep knowledge in marketing.

And that's the kind of long part of my tea, but across the top, I am willing to pitch in and, and have sort of a, I don't a shallow level, not in a negative way, but you know, minimal level of knowledge about these other things that these other people on my team do. So, no, I probably couldn't do their job for like six months, but if they're gonna be gone for three days, I can cover.

You know, I can make sure that their customers are taken care of or their [00:19:00] whatever is, you know, getting taken care of. And so I, I, I love the idea of the team taking on the responsibility of reaching the goals. Not I take a piece of the goal. You take a piece of the goal, but I can't take vacation cuz my piece won't get done, et cetera.

Scott: And I think also having that tea concept. Cause I think it's an easy visual for people to actually comprehend. Okay. That's, that's the core thing I do, but these are the bits I can actually jump in. And if you find somebody else's busy and you are not quite so busy in some aspects, you can actually just go in and help that person say, right.

I can take some load off you at the minute, cuz there's stuff that I know about what you do. So I can actually quite easily move around and other people vice versa, get that reciprocation going within the team.

Melissa: There's such a, a really neat fluidity that comes from that. So. At scrum Alliance, we had fully cross-functional teams.

And by that, I mean, we actually didn't have individual departments. I had six teams [00:20:00] and each team consisted of marketing software development, education support. Like every team had those elements. and there was such a fluidity that, that happened within those teams, because exactly as you just described, they could sort of pitch in on these other pieces.

And my four favorite words are, how can I help? Right. So if I finish my work, instead of pulling in more work that I might not get done, I'm gonna turn to my teammates and say, okay, how can I help to, you know, reach this goal? And. There's an empathy that's created through that too, which was such a neat thing to see, you know, you had, again, marketers working with developers who never understood why it took so long for five lines of code to be written, and maybe they weren't writing code on their own, but maybe they were sitting pre [00:21:00] pandemic, you know, sitting with their teammate and going, oh, I see those five lines of code are like, 300 lines of logic in your brain.

I get that now. So yeah, there's a lot of empathy that was created, which created more fluidity in the team. So there's, there's a beauty in that for sure.

Scott: And that goes back to what that trusting mutually beneficial relationships. So empathy's a big part of that and that sort of the alignment to say, okay, I've got, I've done my bit.

How can I help other people? So what do you think a leader can do or somebody in the team or with that to actually. Generate that sort of culture where people will say do it willingly rather than being told. And instead of saying, oh, I'm busy, I'm not busy now. So I'll either take a chill, take a chill downtime, or I'll try and pull in more work.

I'll actually look at the people around me, my team, see how I can help them.

Melissa: So there are a couple things. One. I see this more in organizations these days, it makes me very happy, being much more outcome focused than output focused. So the goal is not to sit at your desk [00:22:00] for eight hours a day and pump out as many lines of code.

If you're in software or campaigns, if you're in marketing or support tickets, if you're in support, but rather. Here is the outcome that this team is trying to achieve. How do we work together to achieve that outcome and be less focused on, you know, sort of the micromanagement of the output. That's one way that you can start to create that fluidity that we're talking about in that trust.

Another is just simply the role modeling that we talked about earlier. You create trust in people when you do what you say you're going to do, or you do what you're asking them to do. So if you're asking them to, you know, not be afraid to take time off, this is my favorite joke. I always say leaders eat last, which is you know, like a phrase from books, but leaders take vacation first.[00:23:00]

And that might sound odd, but if you are taking vacation or you are leaving at 5:00 PM to go pick up your kids from school and go to their soccer game, then you are creating permission for the people in your company to do the same. It does not matter how many times you tell them, oh, I want you to take off at five and go to your soccer game.

If you were sitting there or you were on slack or whatever, you know, until 8:00 PM. There are people that are going to sit there and wait for you to leave because they want you to know, oh, I'm just as committed as the bosses.

Scott: And that's interesting. I think maybe COVID has changed some of the perceptions of that.

But again, I think even if you look at some of the CEOs or some organizations, how they've managed their staff in COVID some have gone down much more down the route of this is your job. Once you've got it done, how you do it is entirely up to you giving you the freedom. Other people have gone. You've got a phone.

You still gotta check in. You still gotta do that. And there's still, as you're still still doing that micromanagement [00:24:00] of the time, I'm paying you to work and I want you to and you might, they might ring and I've heard people say, I, I was scared. I, I take the phone to the, to in case my boss rings. Cuz if I, if you don't answer it, they're gonna think I'm not working.

I think that's definitely not a mutually beneficial relationship in any, in any imagination shape or.

Melissa: Not at all. And it's funny that you say that, like, I definitely have seen, like there's a divide and it feels like leaders and or organizations are going one way or the other. Like, there's not a lot of middle ground.

It's either. I trust my people to get the job done, which means you have to be present and understand the outcomes that you're looking for. That's how the job is considered done. Or, I mean, I am absolutely appalled at. The like, there is software that is monitoring people's key strokes. And not just like the time that they're at their computer, but like, are they on Twitter?

You know? And [00:25:00] just, I mean, we are adults, we are not in parent child relationships. And so it, it is all in my opinion, it's out of fear, you know, I can't see my employees. I can't make sure that they are not on Twitter. So I am going to install software on their machines that make sure that, you know, they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.

But to me, if you can't trust that in your people, then maybe you need to work on hiring, or maybe you just need to work on your own fear of things, because I am a big believer that PE people wake. And want to do the best that they can. Now we are all victims of, or products of our own system, the environment that we're in, lots of things play into that.

But I do believe that people have good intentions. [00:26:00] And so if you're not getting the, the results that you wanna see from your team, instead of saying like, I'm gonna monitor every, you know, thing that they type on their keyboard, maybe instead ask yourself what is the environment that they're working in and how can I help unleash them, you know, and, and approach it from that perspective.

I got a little ranty there. My friend

Scott: no, you're fine. It's that's, it's one me. Cause I spoke somebody from HR once and I said, do you pay for people's time or output? Mm. You what'd they say outburst why'd you manage their time? Boom, boom. Yes. And they were like, hang on. No, use it. You gotta be here.

Eight. You gotta be here at six. I, I like what we said about the CEOs as well. Cuz every interaction we have in my opinion either it, it creates an impression every single one. And if we say one thing, but our interactions that we have with people that there's, there's a disconnect in what we say and what we do, then people look at what we [00:27:00] do more than what we.

Oh 100%. Absolutely. And then that creates, and so I say every interaction either puts money in the trust balance. So imagine you've got a trust balance with people, everything you do, while it puts a deposit into that trust balance with that person, or takes a withdrawal from that. So if you've got CEOs that going home about eight o'clock, they're still really busy and everything is stressed and you say, people will say, they're going, oh, while he telling me to go home, but he's not home.

So I don't think it's okay to do. So I think it's important that we say what we say we are going to do, we deliver, and we demonstrate what we want other people to be like as well. So indeed, a big, there's gotta be, it's an phrase I don't particularly like, but I can't think of another word as a congruence between what we say and what we do.

Melissa: Absolutely. And there's a, a new term that I've been. I think that I coined this. I have not seen anyone else use it in this way, but organizational gas lighting, and this is. The term gas lighting is a psychological term. That basically means manipulation. [00:28:00] That causes people to think that they're crazy, that causes people to question their reality question, you know, what they've heard and what they've seen.

And I've seen this happen in organizations. When you say these are our core values. That's how you retain and recruit people, sorry. Recruit and retain people, right. Is these are our core values. Our culture is what makes us different. This is what differentiates us from other companies and why you should work for us.

So then I, as an employee, I'm like, oh yeah, that sounds, yeah. Those values resonate with me. Can you go work for that company, and then you find out that the behavior specifically of leaders, but maybe not one specific leader, maybe not, it's just the CEO, but rather like the executive team is not in alignment with those values.

And yet we keep espousing them. Like we keep saying, oh yeah, we really believe in. Empowerment. And we really believe in, [00:29:00] you know, being a, a people-centric organization. And then everything that I do is in contrast with that, then I, as the employee and I'm like, wait, am I like. Am I seeing things wrong? Am I, I don't understand because I, I feel like we're saying this, but you're behaving differently.

And I start to question my reality and I think one of the things we're learning is there is actually trauma from that. Like, you can, you can definitely have trauma from say being in a, you know, individual. Friendship or romantic relationship with someone who gaslights you, I believe without any scientific backing, just my own observation, that that same trauma can come from being in a workplace that is gaslighting you, that is telling you that we believe something and then behaving in a completely different way every time you turn around.

And so yeah, this is my new, the new [00:30:00] thing that I am I don't know. I think it's important. I think we're at, especially as the pandemic is not over, but starting to maybe see an end, companies are fighting for talent, right? Companies are fighting for getting good people. So they want to differentiate themselves.

They want to sell themselves. And it is so incredibly important that we are sure as leaders that what we are selling is actually true. And it's kind of scary to not be the, you know, sexy company whose values are X, Y, and Z. But if we sell that and we're not actually that, then we're creating. Trauma in the workplace and eventually it's gonna come out.

You know, eventually people are gonna recognize, oh, they say they're that, but they are not at all. I think we are much more likely to create mutually beneficial [00:31:00] relationships when we are real about what kind of company we actually are. And so it might not feel cool or sexy to say. We're a pretty stable company.

Things, you know, we don't like a lot of change. , you know, we want to, what has worked for us has worked for us and there are set of values you can create around that. That are true. You're still going to attract people who want that, who want stability or who want not a ping pong table kind of place, but rather, you know they, people like cubicles.

There are people that want that. And if we're real about it, then we're much more likely to attract the kind of people that would be attracted to who we are as a company. And there's all types of different companies. Right? So be real about who we are. So we have employees that don't feel like they were tricked into working for us.

Scott: I mean, that causes [00:32:00] massive again, it's by that dishonesty of what we say is not what we do. And at the beginning is what your brand, so you've got your brand, you sell to your customers, but you also got your brand in the marketplace when you're recruiting. And so it has to be, this is what we say, this is what happens.

And I, and there is it. So it's imagine, look, you're on Tinder as an organization, Tinder account as it swipe, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna swipe. I don't understand left or right. I'm a bit too old for all. But whichever way you want them can is left or right. But what you want them to do is people who find what you do attractive come and working for you because they're the ones who are gonna be okay in that type of environment.

They're going to want to work in that type of environment. And so I, so being that open and transparent can seem risky.

Melissa: 100%, especially when whatever it is that you are is not maybe mainstream right now, you know? But again, there are people that are looking for that. You know, if you [00:33:00] go back to the Tinder example, you know, if you're like must love dogs.

There are people who want dogs. If you're like, must love AANAs. There are people who love a Guana too, you know? And so being honest about who you are as an org, which really means like sitting down as a leadership team and getting real about it and going all right, we have these five values, but based on our, you know, five year, 10 year plan, actually one of these values is not aligned with what we want for the future of this company.

And frankly, for, for those listening, This is probably one of the most understandable times for companies to do. Right post quarantine. The world has changed. People will understand if right now you come up with an entirely new set of core values because the world has changed and your strategy has changed.

And now you're [00:34:00] different as a company. And so I really am encouraging leaders like look at your values and be honest with yourself. It's like we talked about boundaries a little while ago. Be honest, like, can I uphold these values? Can I not just ask the people that work for me to uphold them, but can I uphold them?

Can I be the leader in X, Y, Z, whatever your core values are.

Scott: And if you haven't got them, there are ways cuz you have a set of values in your organization. Anyway, I think one of the best definitions of Culture I've I've seen, but I can't, I can't attribute, I can't remember who to attribute it is.

It's culture is defined by the worst behaviors management allow, cuz that's basically anything below that is unacceptable. Anything above that is acceptable. So it kind of creates the baseline. So whether it's bullying, whether it's supporting management, instead of listening to staff, whatever it is, the behaviors that are with her.

So there are values, I think, in a business that whether we say they exist or. They are there because it, it drives our [00:35:00] behaviors, the cultural type of thing I'd imagine, but we can actually ask staff and say, if the staff you want to keep and what do they find important about your business? What do they, what do they benefit?

What, what, what are they proud about what you do as an organization? I think if you ask them that sort of, those types of questions, what you're really doing is uncovering why they're proud to work for your organization. And then from that, you can uncover what's important to them. And I can imagine you would probably then be able to uncover a set of principles or values that your staff are pretty much bought into.

Anyway,

Melissa: I agree. Again, the only thing that I. Caution in that is that it would be really easy to come up with something that sounds really neat and that maybe your team can buy into, but if you can't or your number one team, you know, your leadership team can't, then you're, you're setting yourself up to Gaslight people.

And so I think those are awesome questions. [00:36:00] 100%. It's just, when you get down to that set of principles, You have to take a good, hard look at it and say, you know, is it something that we are willing to embody as a team?

Scott: And that's the question is, are we willing to do it exactly? Is

Melissa: it, it won't always be easy.

Especially, I mean, there are things that might be easier to do as a teammate in the company than it is as a CEO. right. Might be easier to be transparent. you know, when you're an individual contributor or a teammate in a team than when you're the CEO, it might be easier to be vulnerable. Maybe vulnerability is hard for everyone, but you know, so when you look at these principles or these values, you really have to say like, this is something that.

But not only are we willing to do, but are we enthusiastic to try to [00:37:00] do cuz also if you're faking it until you make it kind of a situation, people see that too.

Scott: Yeah. And I think sometimes there's another quote is about leadership. It's leading a like sailing a boat in smooth water disease is when it gets rough.

That's when you, you are challenged. And I think values are easy to follow when the company's making and being successful profit or whatever it is you're doing is when you get a dilemma. Yes, totally. And I think totally true. That's when the values that you are actually making key key decisions on become more apparent.

And are you brave enough to stick to the values that we've said, cuz that builds that trust that people have with you and say, no matter what happens, I know the senior management team, the CEO, or my boss act in this way with these, these are the sort of parameters they make their decisions on and I know what they are and I can trust that decision.

I might not like the outcome, but I know where the decisions come from and I can accept it. I think so. Absolutely. [00:38:00]

Melissa: Well, it's funny because if you think back to when there's a lot of research about how. How children respond in, you know, crisis situations and how, if they can look to the adult in their life and that person is consistent or they know what to, even if it's just interesting, I've been reading about this lately, like attachment theory and attachment styles.

And even if the person isn't treating them well, they will still gravitate to the person that they know what to expect from. They know what those boundaries are now. Don't want to, I'm not infantalizing adults in the workplace, but if that is how we as children, you know, kind of cope with situations, it makes sense that we would be more comfortable in the situation, not where the environment doesn't change, but where the person that we proceed as leaving us is [00:39:00] consistent.

So like you said, if, if I know that. This is a set of values that my leader operates from. No matter the situation, then I feel more comfortable and more secure. Maybe even in taking risks. right. And, and like navigating situations because they're not another variable that I have to deal with in a crisis situation.

So here's this, you know, big problem that we have and, oh, I also have to worry about whether or not my CEO's gonna lose their temper or, you know, behave, err, radically. So it makes sense logically that that would help us feel more

Scott: comfortable. And it's just, if those sets of values and behaviors are positive rather than negative, cause all know the leaders, oh, you can't go to, you're just gonna shout you down cuz then you're not gonna do anything or you're gonna work around them.

So if they're more positive and those values are, are good values. Absolutely. That's very true. Behaviors are positive then that's I, I can trust that. He's he's gonna listen to me. He's always gonna, or [00:40:00] she's gonna, he or she will listen to me, they'll do this. I'll do that. They may then they'll give an opinion, but at least I'll be listened to mm-hmm and I feel valued and you think, okay, cool.

I can, I can function with that because I know that my opinion's been listened to, rather than somebody saying don't take anything to him or her, cuz what they'll do is they'll just change it into their own ideas. And then absolutely that will create a separate sets of behavior. Yep from

Melissa: people. And then, and then the leader wonders.

Why , why can't I get any innovation or risk taking from my team? That's why my friend

Scott: that's why that's it always look in the mirror first? Isn't it? Cuz we are as leaders within a small business, as a small business owner with a group of five people or as a CEO of a multi-billion pound company, whatever it is, the, the, the impact of the leadership team or leaders on the.

The environment they have influence over, or they say that power dynamic mm-hmm cause you go to a company I'd imagine through your experience. And I I've now working where I used to work [00:41:00] big company, 50, 60,000 people. Nowhere felt the same. Mm-hmm mm-hmm it was overarching. You can, you know, kind of where it is, but you could walk into some departments that were, that were getting on.

Well, everyone was functioning, they got the, the management and leadership all went and you got other departments. Ooh is this company, oh, this feels totally different. Like there's a backs stab in and there's snipy stuff coming on. And I do think a lot of that down is to the quality of the, that that unit areas leader to actually lead in a more positive way.

Melissa: Absolutely and are like very aware of their own influence of the other influences on the team and the departments and are creating that space. For sure.

Scott: Space has come back. We've come back to space quite a lot. Haven't we come back to space. I did, we did a session yesterday where I was out and a lot space came in, came up in that conversation an awful lot, not official space.

Cause they were, they were a team coming back after being from COVID. Hadn't [00:42:00] seen two and a bit years. Some people have never actually been face to face with other team members. So it was an interesting team dynamic and getting that, and that's it. We just were trying to create a space for them in that day to just reconnect with each other.

But also with some outcomes, but space came up an awful lot conversation. So it's great to have this time. It's great to have this space. And the other thing that came up was. Yep. And I think that's important as a leader to create that mutually beneficial. When it goes back to what you said at the beginning, be vulnerable.

Yes. Be vulnerable because you don't know everything and you can't be good at everything. And I think accepting that and then vocalizing that to people and say, do you know what I'm new to this team? I just wanna get on the, you know, more than me help me out. Imagine if you, a new leader came in and did that, but, and I think we are changing perception of what leadership is cuz years ago it used to be I'm the leader.

I know I should know everything and I should solve everything and people just follow. And I think what you say, those two, those [00:43:00] two dynamics, I suppose, I think also accelerated by COVID is organizations still function like that. And then there's other organizations that are moving towards. Now let's have a lot more open outcome focused conversations about how we can work together and collaborate.

Melissa: Absolutely the best advice I was ever given. I always talk about that. The company that I grew up in I'm using air quotes here. I started working there when I was 20 years old and I worked there for 12 years and some of the best leadership. I've ever seen happened in that company. They were really ahead of their time, cuz this was 20 years ago.

But the best advice I was given by one of my favorite leaders in my lifetime was when I got my very first management job. And he said, I challenge you to go into this team and make zero decisions for 30 days. Just sit back, listen, observe and make zero [00:44:00] decisions for 30 days. And, and it was especially hard cuz I was actually part of the team first and then I got promoted to be their manager.

And so, you know, decisions that I had previously been making as just a part of the team, I had to like sit back and not, you know, make those decisions and, and take it to the. And say, okay, team, you know, where do you land with this? And it was really impactful because then I was paying much more attention to listening, observing, being in the moment than trying to prove myself, which is often what, you know, new managers, new leaders will do.

Oh, I have to prove that I'm worthy of this job. I have to prove that, you know, there's a reason that I'm the leader. And my sitting back and I was honest with the team about it. I said, I'm gonna sit back. And Larry has con has challenged me to sit back [00:45:00] for 30 days. And so that's what I'm gonna do. And it left so much more room and space.

Four conversations as a team that I learned from so that when I did maybe start stepping up a little bit more in, you know, I couldn't do that forever. There was so much more fluidity between them and I, and I took that with me to other jobs. Like I try to do that in when I'm like, you know, an employee and a leader in a company.

I try to do that much more. In that first 30 days and just sitting back and, and learning.

Scott: I think the important thing is yes, the sitting back and learning I think is really, is, is a good concept. A good idea. I think the bit that probably in just listened to your story, that res that I think to pick up on is at the beginning, there was a statement of intent.

Yes. Yes. I am now telling you what's gonna happen over the next 30 days. And I'm going to deliver on that goes back to those promises, cuz if you never make a, if you didn't make a decision in 30 days, never told them why you weren't making that's true. [00:46:00] I've got a manager who's not manager. So although it's a good concept.

I think that's statement of intent, cuz again, I think that puts, as you were talking about earlier about that context and the boundaries. Mm-hmm , we're providing that context. I'm a new manager. I've been challenged. I think it's important for me to sit back and not make decisions at the moment, but to learn.

So for the next 30 days, we're gonna make decisions together. I'm not on my own. I am not going to make a decision 30 days and then people go, okay. Yeah, that's true.

Melissa: I definitely set it up front and then it was interesting because I had been part of the team. originally, I was able to sit back from a different perspective now and go, oh, well, without saying it out loud, what would I have done if I had made this decision as a manager and hadn't been paying attention, you know, to what was going on in the team, but you're absolutely right.

The intent is super important. Otherwise it just looks like I'm doing nothing. [00:47:00]

Scott: Yes, gimme the money and I'm not taking any responsibility. It's fantastic. , I've seen managers do that as well, or gimme the money and I've got to cover everything there is. But I do believe that statement of intent is really important.

Cause I think it goes back to what you were saying as well. I'm going to give you these decisions as long as it meets these criteria, ABC or operates within this boundaries within these principles, I think again, that's a statement of intent in your making and, and the empowerment you're giving people.

And it's been real about what that is and being able to. Agree. I think we, as managers, do we actually go in and do that with our teams and say, this is my intent statement intent, or how we're gonna move forward in ABC or whatever it is. I think that'd be quite an interesting thing for people to do.

Absolutely. Cause that's the framework from which you can then, as you say, be realistic about it, deliver on it, be consistent with it, work within those values and it creates that space. That people then, cuz you're demonstrating vulnerability and explain why you're [00:48:00] doing stuff. And you're giving people the freedom to do what you said you were going to let them do.

Melissa: That brings me back to the boundary. I wanna just point out something really quick that, that you said. So when I was talking about, you know, only saying, okay team, whatever decision you make between one and three is fine with me. Also being able to say, I would eventually love to get us to a place where you could actually make decisions between one and eight, but here are the things that I think that you need and they're gonna take some time.

So that's where the context part comes in is, you know, yes, it's often about data or information, but sometimes it's also just about the experience of making decisions. So after we've made some decisions between one and three. Then we'll stretch it to one in five, you know, I'll give you more room, more flexibility in the decision making when you've had a little bit more experience making those types of decisions.

And so being like expressing that [00:49:00] intent. even about the boundaries and saying, I want the boundaries to be bigger, but we need to work together to give you what I have so that I can let that go, you know, without fear. And so I, yeah, I think that intent is kind of looped into that as well.

Scott: Yeah. So there we go.

Be open, be honest, ha be intent full and deliver on it consistently kind of there that's it. ISN.

Melissa: We've solved all of

Scott: leadership that we could just write that leadership program. So just give that to everybody, went away, just do that, do those things, and you can't go far wrong. There you go. not skills based.

It's more behavioral based. Isn't it? It's attitude and behavioral based. Mm-hmm and that's one of the things that's another one of our bug bears like leadership training. Oh, come, we're gonna teach you a difference between leadership and management, who really cares. Yes. Who, who I don't, my staff don't need to know, or my team don't need to know if I'm gonna be I'm being a leader or manager in what I'm doing.

I don't need to know. [00:50:00] I need to know my responsibilities and how I can then work with my team to get that. So I think some of the things we do in leadership development is questionable about the actual impact on helping people be more effective leaders. I can see that cause we don't call it management training anymore.

Anyway, do.

Melissa: No, definitely not. That is not in Vogue anymore. No,

Scott: it's all leadership training. So why do we spend the first day of it working out? What the difference is? Just, just go through what leadership is and do they really need to know? I don't know, but that's, that's another one of my bug bears about leadership training is cause I I've done training for many years and you go and you go to hotels and you pop your head as trainings.

When those you pop your head into a training room and see these things on there. So it's got leadership manage. It's got something, something called Bevin or something, or of Tuckman. Okay. There you go. So you are you're on day one of a leadership program. Yes. And that's pretty much any leadership program that you go to, you say you're on day one of a leadership program.

So every leader in the world needs these things and we deliver those things to everyone. [00:51:00]And really should we or say, what do you need to become a better. How can I help you get there?

Melissa: Yeah, I do love me Tuckman though. Must say, and, and Hackman as well about self-organization, but I hear

Scott: you well, no, I think they're useful.

They're useful to understand. And the, especially when you were talking about the team and when you were talking about that fluidity, then obviously the Tuckman models, that's that performing team. You need to know what, what sort of against that research. I think it's important to have that sort of understanding of where and why we're going places and what you are doing.

So the theory underpinning it I'm not sure the way it's delivered is great, but that's just a personal view. Just a personal view. Okay. Well, it was, it was a pleasure, I think was, I don't think I know it was, but I'm saying, I think we've been nearly an hour and we've just looked at my time. We have so it's been absolutely pleasure talking to you.

Thank you very much. And I think the thing that's come from me is that the gas lighting, cause I remember you talked about the last time before we came online. I think that's an interesting concept about thinking about the potential damage we are doing to people when we. These [00:52:00] values and actually deliver something completely different and cause it yes, cause that uncertainty and confusion in people mm-hmm and having the bravery be to, to be true to yourself about what you are as a leader, as a business.

And I think this is really important for small businesses growing. Yes. So if you're a small business and you are just starting to bring on staff into your team and start building and growth, it's really what company are you gonna. Because you might not be one of these, you might not be a, you say the traditional high risk startup.

Silicon valley type thing. You might be a relatively stable foundation, the market, all about relationships type business.

Melissa: And I promise you if that is who you are. There are so many people that are looking for that. Cause I work with a lot of those high risk startups and there are people in those teams that.

Struggle with the uncertainty of that. And then there are other people who embrace it, you know, it takes all types to make the world go [00:53:00] around, but we just have to be honest about who we are so that those people can find you and be happy with you and have a mutually beneficial relationship

Scott: because you are what you are delivering is what they need, and then they're gonna help you deliver what you.

Exactly. It's the thing is I, I did the other thing about a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about startups and we were talking about scaling up that interest. So when you think about it and he breaks it down, it's just so simple. Hmm. So, and the same about how you are talking about the relationships.

It is so simple. Just have intent, be open, deliver on a bit, be honest with yourself about what you're willing to. Yes. Agreed. Sort of the, the building blocks are not that complicated. It just amazes me that it's just not delivered on a regular basis.

Melissa: Oh, cuz we're humans and humans are complex and our behavior is complex, but yes, if we can focus on those things, I think we'll get 10 steps ahead pretty quickly.

Scott: If we can simplify the complexity. Yes, [00:54:00] simplify. I, I, I know if this is why nor what I've heard, but I don't think humans are com complicated. I think we are complex. Yes. And I agree. And if we can simplify again and understanding that complexity, then moving forward's much easier. absolutely. So there we go.

Anyway, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much for your time. And obviously links to your website and et cetera, et cetera will be in the, in the comments below the podcast. So thank you very much for your time. Yeah.

Melissa: Thank you. It was a joy. My favorite topics.

This episode is 'How Might We Become Excellent' and my guest is Joe Templin.

Joe, has led an eclectic life.

As one of six kids (the only normal one, he insists) growing up in a small town and spending time on the family farm, Joe’s parents (John and Barb) instilled a love of learning, the outdoors, and a healthy disrespect for authority while still simultaneously embracing traditional values of hard work and “love thy neighbour but mind your own dang business.”  This is Joe’s foundation.

He was severely asthmatic but through his work ethic and love of challenge has become a martial artist and ultradistance runner.  He had a speech impediment but has built a career around communicating.  This habit of overcoming limitations is a theme in his life and his writings.

Joe shares his tips and thoughts on everyday excellence.

Joes LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-templin/

Joes Website - https://everyday-excellence.com

Transcript

Scott: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of how might we and today's Mike guest is Joe Templin all the way from over the pond in the us of a, and we are gonna be talking about how might we become excellent. So, Joe, would you like to introduce yourself to the guests please?

Joe: Sure. So I'm Joe Templin. I am a self-taught polymath in a lot of ways.

I say polymath as opposed to Renaissance man, simply because I can't draw a straight line even with a ruler. As you notice, I've got a little bit of an attitude and self deprecating humor. Everything's funny. I'm half Irish. So that's the way it is. And I am a human Swiss army. I am an ultra-marathoner a special needs parent, a martial arts champion and [00:01:00] author of the book every day excellence.

Scott: Okay. So quite a mixed bag of stuff in there and lots of experiences.

Joe: Yeah. You know, I have stuff to be able to pull out of the cabinet for almost any conversation I had with.

Scott: Okay, so that sort of flexibility is, is held you in good stead, like the experiences you've had.

Joe: Yeah. And also as some of my friends in used to say, I'm the most interesting man in financial services.

Scott: Okay. And not, not renowned for an in full of interesting people. I must admit financial services. No, not written out for you. Okay. So you wanna talk about how might we become. What do you mean by those?

Joe: So the first thing is that excellence is like happiness in that it is individually defined, but there are some consistencies across individuals about what it [00:02:00] constitutes happiness or excellence in a lot of ways.

So for example, Excellence is partially about, is the process of improvement because we all start off life as babies. Okay. We can't take care of ourselves. We cry, you know, we eat, we poop. That's about all that we do when we sleep, hopefully, and that is literally how every single human being on the planet has started.

Whether they become, you know, the most renowned martial artist on the planet, the greatest writer, you know, captains of industry, queen of England, they all started from the exact same position. So how do they determine where they wanna be, what they wanna become and go about the process of doing. That is the first critical component in discovering your own internal excellence, because we all have tremendous capacity that few of us even tap.

In fact, no matter [00:03:00] what I've accomplished, there's still so much more that within me that I could unlock if I truly invested the time to do so. And every single human being's like that. So first we need to start figuring out, okay, what does excellence mean to. And for the person who is sitting there trying to get their degree while raising three kids, it is being able to pass the exams while at uni and then be able to get that degree so they can build a better life to them.

That is the next step of excellence. And that is a very critical thing for other people. It might be, you know, winning that gold medal at the Olympics or, you know, making their first million dollars, whatever it. The first component of excellence is having a vision to be able to start working towards. And you know, that vision as says in the Bible, people without a vision will perish.

If you don't have something [00:04:00] really important that you're working towards, you're gonna found it. You're gonna, you know, find any excuse to not put on the running shoes and go running. You're going to sit there and eat Cheetos and watch the bachelorette. Instead of cracking the book, you're gonna find any excuse possible to avoid doing the difficult things become better simply because that is human nature.

It

Scott: reminds me a little bit. I saw somebody a quote and I can't remember who, who this quote came from. Not, I remember where I slow selling is where I saw the them talk about it. And it says those who have achieved in their lives or high performance they, their common thing, they think they they've identified outside of actually knowing where they're going is you mentioned it a little bit.

There is having or completing the habits that other people don't do.

Joe: Yes, there's a great saying from believe it's Ernie gray talk, they gave a hundred years ago, actually that successful people [00:05:00] do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. And that is whether it's, you know, cutting up vegetables and having those instead of eating crisps or it's spending five minutes, every single morning reading so that you expand your mind and spirit, it is.

Truly, as you know of CTM said, wellbeing is no small thing. Buzz made up of small things. It's those little decisions, the micro decisions, as I like to call them that over a day compound and determine whether you are better or worse over and how many good days can you stack up in a week, determines the path of your life.

Essent.

Scott: So go because what you said, it's not that these people do. That other people are unable to do is that they're unwilling to do. I think there's a big difference between those two isn't there,

Joe: there, there's a huge difference. So for example, I'm a martial artist and we all start as [00:06:00]white belts. We all start, you know, at the very beginning with no skills.

In fact, I being, you know, the CLTs that I am naturally, and I was highly, highly asthmatic. So I did not come on in with this immense athletic talent. But we all started and we all learned the exact same basic techniques. We learned about learned how to stand. We learned how to throw a punch and a kick.

And that's what they teach you in most places in your first couple of classes first week. What have you. And then the question is how often are you gonna practice that? So it's just like your basic language. If you're a sales person, how often are you practicing those basics? How often as a musician, are you practicing your scales so that you get that basic repetition and that basic first punch that I learned.

35 plus years ago, I still do that punch every single morning, a hundred times minimum, each hand. And I've done so essentially every day for 35 plus years, at this point, I've thrown [00:07:00] over 10 million punches with each hand. I don't have to think about it, but I go back to that fundamental and repeat and build off of it.

And that is how I've developed excellence in that space is starting with the fundamentals and then growing from there. And it doesn't matter what profession you're in. If you start with your fundamentals and master them, then build off of them. You can create excellence. And unfortunately, people don't wanna do that because it's too much work and it's not, you know, taking the quick pill and, you know, solving all your problems in 30 seconds.

Scott: Reminds me a little bit of what we said just before we came online, cuz this is totally unscripted and we've only just rocked up and even spoken before is say what could go wrong load to things you can't rewind life, but you can't fast forward it either.

Joe: Exactly. So, you know, you can't microwave the baby, as we say.

Scott: I've never heard that. I don't really want to microwave a baby to be perfectly honest, but so it's not really,

Joe: so it's a, it's a process, you know, it takes nine months essentially from the start of pregnancy until the time [00:08:00] that that baby pops out. So it doesn't matter what you do, you can't accelerate. So you need to just buy into that process.

Becoming a very good musician is a process become, you know, climbing the ranks at. Is a process. Yeah. There's things that you can do to make sure that you are doing it the proper way and sustainable comes out healthy and you're ready for the next step, but you can't jump from step one to step six.

Doesn't happen.

Scott: I would tell you what you might be able to do is accelerate through that process. But you can't, as you say, you can't jump. And I think sometimes it's, we, we look at these things, we've got like life hacks and hack your way to here. It's always like the quick fix that we seem to be looking at, or be given in our lives at the moment,

Joe: it can be quicker, but it's actually gonna be not easier.

So one of the things that we used to say is that somebody can be. Fifth year [00:09:00] agent or, or a third year agent in their first year or in their fifth year. It just depends on how many repetitions that they're getting. So if you're gonna have that consistent hard practice, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule.

You know, you can squeeze that in, but you're still doing all of the repetitions. My TaeKwonDo master taught us that to do a technique. You have to execute a hundred times to understand it. You have to do it a thousand and to master it, you have to do it 10,000. So, you know, you can do it once a day for years and years and years and slowly get good, or you can suck it up and just do it and do it and do it and do it and repeat.

So like, let's say that you have a business where you are in sales and you need to reach out to like a hundred people to be able to get your sales quota for the. Well, you know, if you do that and it takes you to Friday to do it. Okay. But what if you could [00:10:00] find a more efficient way to do that same 100 quicker or you suck it up and you just pound it and go, and you do it on Monday.

So that either gives you the opportunity to reach the bonus round really quick, where you're making a ton more money, or you can take Fridays off and, you know, go to the pub with your mates or go hang out with your sweetie or whatever. So you get to, you know, discipline equals freedom is one of the things that Jackwell talks about.

And it's having that discipline to do the hard stuff over and over again quickly so that you're still gonna be doing hard things, but you're doing hard things at a higher level. And as such, you're getting the better results and that is one of the ways to get your excellence.

Scott: Okay. So we'll go, go back.

Cause we, I think we jumped around a little bit. So we started off with how might we become accident? And we said, and the first thing you said is that vision having that, that clarity about what it means to you. And so it's happiness. It's individualized there isn't yeah, there isn't one definition of success.

Yep. Success is contextual with that and is individualized. Okay. So you work with it, [00:11:00] you get your clarity on what does excellence mean for you? What is that achievement you are trying to get? Excuse me, is it then when you start working on, okay. How do I need to do that? What steps do I need to take?

Yeah,

Joe: because people. For example, join martial arts and they see the black belt and they're like, I wanna be able to do that. Or they saw a movie and they wanna be able to do all the cool stuff that they saw there, like in karate kid or what have you. So they have a vision, but then they start figuring out how to achieve it.

So in martial arts, it's like, okay, you come here and we tell you what to do. And we rank you up over time and you have to do the hard work, but we guide you. If you're an entrepreneur, it's a little bit different because you might have this vision of, okay, I wanna build this NCE. You know, company, that's gonna change the world, but people aren't giving you a playbook of do X, Y then Z, and all of a sudden you're the next unicorn.

So you have to figure it out on the fly. I think it was Peter the, who said that sort of like [00:12:00]jumping off of a cliff and building the airplane on the way down. So that is how life is in a lot of ways. So you need to. Figure out what you wanna do start taking the first steps. Even if that first step is right off of the cliff and you figure it out on the way and then doing what you need to, to build.

Whatever it is that gets you to then fly, whether it is cracking the books and having your study plan and doing the homeworks and all that to pass the test, whether it is taking the time to. Every morning, tell your significant other how much you care about them and having one night a week, that's set aside for just the two of you, no kids, and so that you can invest the time to have excellence in that relationship, whether it is taking the time to stand in front of a mirror and look like an idiot while you practice your.

[00:13:00] Performance or your speech, or what have you so that you improve in that capacity so that you can be excellent to do what you need to do there, whatever it is, it's having the vision, then figuring out the plan to get there and executing along the plan. And that comes back to what we started with with happiness is that one definition of happiness that I've heard is continuous progress towards something significant.

Okay. So if your goal is to build this huge organization and you fall in love with the process of building that organization and doing the grinding work and the occasional great success and setback you can handle, then. You're happier because you are doing something significant over time that could be running the ultra marathon that could be getting your black belt.

That could be, you know, mastering the guitar that could be writing your book. So having [00:14:00]something big that you're working towards, that's significant. And having your process that you're executing on buying into it, having essentially that face, that you're doing the right thing and getting your feedback along the way, that is one way to have happiness, but it's also the path to excellence.

Scott: Quite like what we said is we, we are clear on where we're going, but say fall in love with the process.

Joe: And, you know, the process sometimes sucks. I mean, you're gonna have setbacks all along the way, especially the bigger, the thing that you're trying to achieve, the more setbacks that you're gonna have.

But one of the things that we talk about within startup companies is de-risking how can we break it down to small steps? With short feedback loops that you can know either work or don't work, they either make you better or worse on a very small loop, you know, a couple of seconds, as opposed to a couple of weeks and hundreds of hours of work is one thing.

But if you can [00:15:00] get feedback under five minutes so that you can make the micro changes and have better micro decisions that ultimately is going to improve your outcomes overall, and you're gonna. A whole bunch of tiny little wins, and we actually remember more of our wins than our losses. So having more wins, even if they're tiny, they can add up and have a greater psychological effect than trying to get those couple of big wins.

And one of the things that I talk about very often is one of the ways to be excellent. Overall is a mindset and the mindset is that in any situation, in any decision or micro decision, cuz we make about 10,000 microdecisions every single day, you're basically gonna have two potential outcomes. You can lump, you know, a whole variety of things into these two buckets.

Essentially. One is the easy choice. It feels good in the moment. It's the lower energy [00:16:00]requirement very often. So it is the sitting on the couch playing video games instead of getting up and cracking the book I studying for the exam, it is avoiding the difficult discuss. With that significant other or with your boss or somebody that you need to have that talk with, you know, especially if you have teenagers like I do.

Okay. I see too many parents avoiding those difficult conversations. It is the, you know, eating the donut as opposed to the apple. I love donuts. Okay. Don't get me wrong. I'm a donut feed, but I haven't touched one in a while and I won't until after Easter. So it's that it feels good in the moment. But it leads to the worst outcome because if you have that cigarette and it feels good, guess what?

You just share your life by approximately nine minutes. Okay. You sit on the couch and don't work out and your waistline expands and you get diabetes and you have all the bad problems there. So the path that [00:17:00] seems easy, that feels good in the moment, typically leads you into worse and worse decisions.

Overall, the other. Group of decisions are the hard choices. Generally the right choices, they take more energy, they take more effort. The I'm gonna crack the book and study and pass the exam so that I get this degree and eventually can get a better job. It's the I'm gonna go run five kilometers, even though it's raining out.

And I know it's gonna suck, but it's gonna make me better and give me reserves that I can tap into on other bad days, the I'm gonna pick up the phone and call that one potential client that scares. Okay. So that moment of fear that I'm overcoming is gonna have better results, no matter what, even if I don't get that client, I've still faced that fear.

And that gives me more internal strength to be able to make harder decisions down the road. And that's the way that you build up essentially your mental muscles. To be able to do the more difficult things. So choosing the harder [00:18:00] path, as opposed to the easy path is leads to better potential choices that you'll make down the road.

You know, the problems of a successful individual and the problems of an unsuccessful individual, both of the, which creates stress in their lives, but the person who has $5 million in the bank, as opposed to the person who doesn't have a pot to piss in, guess what? They're making very different choices in life, even though they're both difficult choices that they're making.

And their current situation is reflective very often, not always, but for the most part of previous decisions that they made. So make the best choice at that point in terms of the overall that ends up increasing your potential for the future. So make the more difficult choice now to have better outcomes in an easier life down the road.

And so in bringing this back to excellence in the movie, Deadpool two clauses tells Deadpool four or five moments. Four or five moments is what it takes to [00:19:00] be a hero for us on an individual basis. It's those four or five micro decisions every day that end up determining whether our arrow is pointing up for the day or down for the day.

Scott: So there's a book it's slightly different, but the book about I think it's Tim Roth, Tim Roths wrote it from Gallop and it's about those interactions and how full is your bucket and everything we do has a consequence for us and the other people around us. So if we can try and have that positive, impact's better for us.

It's better for the, environment's better for the people. We react to. Very few of our decisions in.

Joe: Yeah. Like almost none of 'em it's constant, either improvement or decline. And so choosing to do the little things that make you better add up tremendously. You know, one of the examples that I use is that if somebody, through their daily choices, expands expenses a hundred calories per day, more than the, what [00:20:00] they consume.

So that's a combination of what they eat, what they drink, but also what they're doing, you know, are you taking the stairs instead of taking the lift? Are you parking, you know, a quarter mile away and walking in, are you walking to the store instead of driving all or taking the tube? All these little things that add up a hundred calories a day is roughly one pound per month, which is 12 pounds for a.

For the decisions that the microdecisions that relate to essentially a hundred calories a day. So that is literally four or five small decisions as to what to eat. And you know whether to sit on your butt or to take a five minute walk.

Scott: So again, it's all goes. It just seems that there's a common theme around here is, is accepted.

Say the mindset is the decisions I make now. Every single one has a, has a consequence further down the road. And it's about looking at those consequences over the decision you make now. [00:21:00]

Joe: Exactly. And so Conneman ended up earning the Nobel prize in economics for the, his research that led to thinking fast and slow and too often were making that gut reaction too often.

We're making the quick decision that seems easy. And the quick, easy decision generally is the wrong. And so slowing down our processes, which for somebody like me, who's high speed and has ADHD can be very difficult, but a moment of planning prevents an hour of unnecessary work, taking a couple of seconds to evaluate a situation.

Before bursting on in can help avoid a law of negative consequences. So thinking before you speak pausing, before you write that response email, these little things will help prevent the major negative events that will severely [00:22:00] interfere with achieving your excellence.

Scott: So, do you think an important part of what you are talking about there is the ability to create space to respond rather than react?

Joe: Yes. So one of the things that professional athletes talk about all the time is slowing down the game. And so we need to be able to slow down the game of life.

Scott: I think COVID, in some ways has helped people do.

Joe: Yes, because it eliminated a lot of the unnecessary. So for example, before COVID, I was doing a lot of speaking and so I would have three or four remote talks per week. And I was getting to the point where I was doing about two that per week that were gonna be scheduled where I'd be on the road, all of a sudden that disappears.

So I don't have to deal with the travel and all that. So even though that was a potential negative. In terms of lost revenue and opportunities. It [00:23:00] gave me time, you know, not having to have the kids to three different events, every single day created time that we could spend with each other and time that we could do things like, you know, teaching them how to cook a healthier meal, cuz I'd been doing all the cooking up until that point for them.

But I was then able to take the time to teach. So that they can do that sort of stuff now. And now that frees up a little bit more time overall because you know, my 15 year old can turn around and make a nice healthy dinner. So I don't have to do it every single night.

Scott: So again, that's another thing. One thing I, I quite like looking at for people is their capabilities and accepting their capabilities and say, do you wanna achieve this?

But also what team do you need around you to help you generate that outcome? So you, a lot of it we can't do on our.

Joe: Oh, absolutely. So that's one of the reasons why the first or the second day of the book for the [00:24:00] year, I have everybody do a SWOT analysis so that they understand what they're good at and what they're not good at.

And so I know the things I'm definitely not good at. And so I either eliminate them if possible, or I outsource them wherever possible so that I can have somebody else who can do it a lot better than me. Take care of it. And it allows me to focus my time on the things that either can bear greater results within the business or greater personal results, like spending time with the kids or being able to go out and run or take time to write.

And that then allows us to maximize the good in the world by allocating resources.

Scott: Yeah, cause I'm I'm I quite like the, the outlook of strengths for that's basically. Do you know what? We're all good at certain things and other people are good at other things. That's, let's lean into our strengths. Yep.

Instead of worrying too much about weaknesses can say, if you invest in your strength, the, it is like an exponential growth in that [00:25:00] area compared to time invested in areas that you're not so good at. Right.

Joe: I mean, if, if you're playing a complete game like golf, you need to work on your strength so that if you do hit in the bunker, you can get on out of there.

But people are really remembered for how they overcame weaknesses and turn them into something neutral. It is doubling and tripling down on your capabilities and becoming world class within one space. As Bruce Lee said, I do not fear a man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. Once I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

So is going back to that practice idea that I had earlier of becoming excellent within certain arenas, you know, find what you're good at, find your passion, find something like that, and really go with it. And that's how you can become truly excellent in one area. And the mindset of unlocking that excellence is a cross-disciplinary skill that you can apply to other arena.[00:26:00]

Scott: which I think is good. Cuz I think a lot of times we think we learn something in one place and we say, oh, I learned that here. And it just stays in this little box. And the way I look at it is I, I see much more the, the life as a sort of a.to.book. Mm-hmm so, and the dots of what I've learned, what I've experienced and I say, okay, which ones can I draw into this situation?

Which ones are gonna help me now? And which ones can I pull from? So I see learning as learning and it's, it's not compartmentalized into any aspect. It's. These are things I've learned, developed skills, whatever it is. I've experienced that as, because you are a whole being aren't you, you are not a person at work and a person at home, you are a person.

Joe: Exactly. And so, you know, is that a person who is highly conscientious about their work? Is that an individual who, you know, is known for going above and beyond, or for creativity? Because, I mean, if you're highly creative in terms of how you do one thing, then you probably bring [00:27:00]that mindset into other areas.

If you are very focused on being a good. Person in terms of your relationship with your significant other, you're probably going to bring that same sort of concept in some of the things that work in that space, into the work environment. Or into your relationships with your friends or other areas. So it's being able to build these skills that are cross-functional and applicable in multiple arenas.

And that is one of the key tools of excellence because. The discipline to be successful in one space helps out in a lot of ways, the mindset of breaking down to fundamentals like I did with the martial arts that turned around and assisted in being able to be successful in business because I used the exact same mindset.

Right. And then the [00:28:00] consistent practice, the doing the things every day, that was helpful as an athlete. That turned around. And I was able to use that in terms of writing to every single day, whether I felt like it or not sit down and write. And some days it was good writing and some days it was not quite so good, I threw most of it in the garbage, but it was that I'm showing up and doing it every single day.

And having that attitude that comes across and allows you to be successful in multiple

Scott: arena. I think was it, was it Jack Nicholson said the more I practiced the luckier I seem to get.

Joe: Exactly.

Scott: I think that's a good thing. So if you had to sum it up and say a couple, cause obviously you've written the book and, and helping people deliver this daily excellence towards what would you say sort of the key things would be sort of sort everything we've talked about over the last, like 30, 40 minutes we, you would put together and say, right, this is sort of your roadmap to delivering excellence.

Joe: The roadmap is [00:29:00] first figure out what you wanna be. Excellent. Get that vision that we talked about, build a plan, you know, and even if it's a loose plan, even as like star Lord says in guardians of galaxy, I got 12% of the plan. That's actually a good start simply because things are gonna change along the way.

As Mike Tyson said, everybody's got plan until they get punched in the face. And life is gonna punch in the face repeatedly. So you need to be able to take it and keep moving forward as Rocky ball Balla says, but also you need to be able to adjust and change how you're going about it because not getting punched in the face is better and getting punched in the face.

Quite frankly. So, you know, learning on the fly, but then it's the daily focus of I'm going to show up and I'm going to do my work and having strategies around that, whether you are using James Clear's habit stacking, which I'm a huge fan of whether it's applying Pomodoro method to be able to. Chunk [00:30:00] up small amounts and be able to crank through them, whether it's occasionally just removing yourself from the situation decompressing so that you can refill your tank so that you're more effective.

These are all little tools along the way, but they are ways to make sure that you are continuously executing on your plan to get to wherever your goal. Your vision of excellence is.

Scott: Okay. And it, and I, I like the thing about the, having that, that feedback look, which is important in business, but I think it's important for us cuz there's a guy called Elvin Turner wrote book called be less zombie.

And in that one of the chapters is experimentation is the rocket fuel of innovation. Yep. So, and that's what your plan is. We talked about yesterday. We was talking to Kara on a previous podcast. He said, your plan is where you want to go with a load of assumptions, built into it.

Joe: Yes, and you need to then be ready to challenge all those assumptions along the way.

And [00:31:00] remember, the river is going to cut through the rock. It's gonna get to the place that it ultimately wants to be, even if it has to take detours. And that's the way life is in a lot of ways. The analogy that I use with younger people that I'm mentoring, especially like teenagers, like my kids is if we look at life like it is a giant video.

Okay. And our goal in this game is to get to the castle in the end, save the princess, get the chest of gold and all that, you know, that is the main quest. We might have to make all these side quests along the way. You might need to go into the Tavern and talk to the crazy old guy to find some information you might need to, you know, go into this, you know, dark side area to get a resource, whether it's a person or a potion or something like that, you might need to go into the Tavern and sleep overnight to recharge.

Okay. If you look at life like that sort of quest all these side quests, whether it's, you know, the business that didn't work out, that [00:32:00] relationship that failed that class that you took in college, you know, this, you know, interesting conversation with somebody, this great podcast on how do we become, you know, these little side.

Give you the resources necessary to ultimately succeed in the main quest of getting whatever that treasurer is and saving whoever it is that you're trying to save. So being able to look at and say all I didn't waste this time, I was able to be successful in some capacity. And having that attitude is what makes it better off

Scott: overall.

So what did I learn and how can I feed that learning back into where I want to go?

Joe: I'm I'm sorry, I lost you there for one. What did, what

Scott: did I learn and how can I utilize that new learning? To help me move forward and whatever it's. And I think that's, I think businesses here, cause we don't look at that the successful businesses do that in what they do.

They don't look at it as a failure. They [00:33:00] said, yeah, it didn't work, which is cool because it, maybe it wasn't meant to work, but what did we learn? That's useful for the rest or in other aspects of the business that may help

Joe: us. Exactly. So as my father always said, it's, you know, that Pearl of wisdom or excellence that you find from every meeting or every seminar that you attend or book that you read or what have you.

So you find the Pearl, which very often you remember pearls. Come about from something that is annoying, the oyster mm-hmm . And so it develops something from it. So if we can find those pearls in every situation you get enough of those pearls, you can end up having a very rich life.

Scott: Indeed. So again, it's back to mindset.

Exactly. Mindset generates action.

Joe: Exactly. And so it's a feedback loop. So you improve your mindset, you improve your action, you do actions to improve your mindset.

Scott: And you keep that as keep that as fresh. And then you just keep it. You keep your true north, which is where you wanna be in the end. Just keep that you say [00:34:00] exactly.

Joe: And sometimes you might have to, you know, go over a falling tree or round to the ditch or whatever. But if you know where you're trying to get to and you keep going, eventually you end up there. It's like the sailing, isn't it.

Scott: They tack for the wind. Change. They still go that way, but that's the best way to get to where I want to go, even though it's not exactly cause the context and the circumstances and what's around us, that's it.

And the, the, the more experienced, better sailors can read those quicker, understand it quicker and make the adjustments better. E

Joe: exactly. And so, you know, ultimately we should all be pirates, try and get that, you know,

Scott: It sounds like I've never sailed in my life, but you know, I've talked to people who do sail, so I'm kind of using their experiences.

I don't, I don't, I'm not a great fan of getting too wet to be honest. So I, I, I love the water, but it's just too, too cold. As long as

Joe: it's over there.

Scott: No, I, I quite like being in it when it's not cold and I live in the UK, so that's not very often. So when I learned to scuba dive, it was, we dive in and it was like, I couldn't see anything, but I loved the experience cuz it, it was really weird seeing.[00:35:00]

Experience the thing about underwater, I really loved is you experienced life in 360 degrees. Yes. Whereas on the ground, you tend to experience it on the flats.

Joe: You, scuba diving is the closest experience that a human can have to actually fly.

Scott: I can. Yes. Especially if you hit a drift.

Joe: Yep. And so like you you're just there and as, as a scuba diver, it is beautiful because you're literally in this.

Alien environment. Your senses are completely different because I mean, you're hearing everything that's going on with the water. You have no sense of smell. Your vision is very different under there. And you are more in tuned with your breathing and the feel of the environment around you.

Scott: Yes, it's much.

Yeah. The sensory experience is different. Unfortunately, I've got I developed science problems, so I can't scuba dive anymore because of the changing pressures. Doesn't do me many favors, but it was an interesting, especially the drift dive. [00:36:00] The guy told us said, just imagine you're at the cinema and this is the movie reel.

And we just hit, just hit a drift and just followed it. And just whatever happened underneath us is what we watched was phenomenal. So basically it's a lucky dip movie reel. You dunno where you could be a romance. It could be a thing. You dunno where you're gonna get, but enjoy the experience along the way.

It's great.

Joe: It's probably as long as it's slot, not jaws. You're good. Yeah, I

Scott: did. I didn't want the horror movie to be honest. That's not the one I was going for to be done. That was, and the night dive was interesting as well. Cuz then you're massively deprive in your sensory. Even more diving at night is interesting.

So that was all the build up dives we had to do to get our qualifications. But yeah, it was good fun.

Joe: And so see, you know, those experiences. You, you can bring in and draw from, in terms of other things within your life. And that is one of the reasons why, you know, we talked about these side quests and also when you find somebody who has taken a similar side quest, you know, we can [00:37:00] have this couple of minute of deep discussion around a passion for a moment.

That is one of the things that, you know, all of a sudden I'm much more amped up than I was. 45 minutes ago before we started talking. And hopefully it's made you smile a little bit. And so we now have not only a shared experience, but also we both have a better feeling that we're gonna carry forward through the rest of our day.

So this is one of the things about. Doing creating excellence in the world is having these small interactions with other individuals where both of them end up better for it, because we're both gonna go on out around the rest of our day and I'm gonna interact with probably another half dozen people you're gonna interact with at least another half dozen people.

And so we're both in a slightly up pointing arrow for the day and hopefully that. Be shared with these other individuals and that then creates a multiplicity effect. [00:38:00] And that's one of the reasons for trying to make sure early in the day you're doing the right thing so that your mindset is proper and positive for the entire day.

Scott: Yeah, that's great. I mean, that, that really does resonate with that book. Helpful, lose your bucket. Every interaction you have is it's never is rarely, hardly ever neutral, but if it's a negative interaction, it impacts you and the other person. So if you're, so even if you shout at somebody, cuz you're frustrated, you, you, you empty their bucket, but psychologically also damaging your own.

So if you look, if you look at everything, so how can I fill my bucket in the people around me in every single again, it's that micro thing is in it's and there's another guy. Wrote a book about flourishing leadership and that's the same, get that spiral going upwards rather than the spiral going downwards,

Joe: right.

Or it's the concept of lighting other people's candles, because if I can bring light into your world, you know, and I can help light your candle in some capacity, it does not diminish my own. Does it, if I'm extinguishing my [00:39:00] candle for, you know, creating darkness or bad mood or whatever, then that carries over to other individual.

Scott: Absolutely. So there's a, there's a, these things are things we know that it's having that discipline. I think an important aspect, as you say, is that self-awareness as well. Where am I today? How can I create that space so that I can make the right decisions at

Joe: level? One of the things about that is I'm glad that we've had this conversation where we've brought in all these other authors and books and you know, ways of looking at it because the bigger your tool.

The more capability that you have to be able to find the right thing in that moment. So one of your listeners might take away something from our discussion about scuba diving. Another one might take away something about the martial arts. Another one might take away something from about the bucket and by giving an entire Schor.

Of different concepts that all ultimately [00:40:00] help feed the soul, feed the mind, then people will be able to walk away and be full in the proper. No matter how the, what their taste is in that situation. And so that is one of the cool things about exposing yourself to a whole variety of podcasts or books or people, is that it allows you to have a greater choice as to how to go about ultimately getting fullness in your belly and your.

Scott: Okay, lovely. I think that is a great place to finish. I think it's just, as you say, pick the stuff and that's really important. Pick the stuff that suits you and sits on your should as well. Cuz if all you ever ha if all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yeah, exactly.

Huge toolbox. Then you can choose the right one. That's one works for you as a person. And also then in the context for which you want to use. So the bigger it [00:41:00] is the better charge you have of choosing that. Right. As master Toman, have they have lots of tools. Mm-hmm and they've probably got one. They used the most cuz it's the most effective one for them,

Joe: correct?

Scott: That's it. Okay. Lovely, Tim. It was sorry, Tim, Joe, that where Tim came from. Hello, Joe. It's an absolute pleasure talking to you and thank you very much for your enthusiasm and talking about excellence and say, hopefully people will get ready and there'll be links. In. In the on the podcast from your information from you and your books, et cetera.

So people wanna find out more, just click on the links and you'll be able to do so. So Joe Scott,

Joe: this has been fun. I've learned a lot, be excellent and grow today. Thank you