Making Business Matter (MBM)

Episode 15 - Interview With Retail Business Consultant and Author, George Troy.

In this episode, I interview George Troy. George is a widely read blogger, author, and consultant focused on retail business communities, including online and brick-and-mortar stores. He has enjoyed decades of real-life experience as a senior executive for some of the best-known and most successful retail companies in the US and globally. A specialist in apparel, footwear, sporting goods, cookware, and home furnishings, Troy has led the retail divisions of Deckers Outdoor (UGG Boots) and outlet divisions of Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn. Today, he reflects upon his years of experience and discusses his new book, The Five Laws of Retail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Record, so I'm recording. We're live, this is grand. Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Nathan Simmonds. I am working with MBM. We are the soft skills provider for the UK grocery and manufacturing industry. These interviews are about sharing the philosophies and the thinking of great people to help you be the best version of yourself. Today, I'm interviewing George Troy. Now, I've had some wonderful conversations with him from everything from chickens to squashes to the five laws of retail which is exponent, expert ...

This is his field of genius. I've been speaking to him about these, and I want to share some of these ideas with you, or get him to share them with you.

Nathan Simmonds:

I want to introduce him first. I've got his bio here and it's pretty decent reading for someone in the consultancy industry. This is good stuff. 35 years of real life experiences, a senior executive for some of the best known and most successful retail companies across the globe. A specialist in both men's and women's apparel, sporting goods, cookware, home furnishings, and he's even led a retail division of Deckers Outdoor, which we all know as Ugg Boots, Williams Sonoma, and The Pottery Barn.

Key successes, taken Ugg Australia retail sales from 0 to 400 million in the US, Europe, and Asia in just 8 years. That on its own George is a pretty decent celebration right there of a career.

George is currently a consultant with the Grayson Company, based in New York. He's also serving on the board of directors for two non-profit organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also, he's got a BA with honours from Berkeley in anthropology, which makes his storytelling unique to say the least, and he uses that as the backbone of his approach to his book, ‘The Five Laws of Retail’. Please, welcome George Troy to the camera and the interview. George, thanks for being here. Really appreciate this.

George Troy:

Well Nathan, thank you very much for that introduction. I'm glad to be with you. It almost sounds like he could never hold down a job.

George Troy - blower and author

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Well I think you've got the experience from the apprenticeships of some of your earlier roles, which then got you into Ugg because of that real life experience and the stuff that you cut your teeth with. You know what? Now you're a consultant doing that for other people. It just increases the impact you get to have on those businesses. You know what? I'd rather you didn't hold down a job because it means you get to go and see more people and do more good in the world.

George Troy:

That's true. That's true. Thank you very much.

Nathan Simmonds:

So look, for me, the big question first of all when I'm talking to people is why do you do what you do? What was it that inspired you to be where you are and do the things that you're doing right now?

George Troy:

Well there are a lot of things. Primarily, the book that just came out, The Five Laws of Retail, can I show that for a moment?

The Five Laws of Retail, and it's just released last spring. It's doing fairly well, and there's several reasons I did that. One is that I honestly believe, I know, that these things will help people. They'll help people be more successful and to avoid failure. The other thing is as you just alluded to are the stories. I tell the story of these laws through the stories of things that happened to me, and that I did research and historical research and business research too, because retailing, whether it's groceries or beverages or shoes, is all about the people, and it's all about the types of interactions and the things that happen.

George Troy:

Nathan, you know, if you've been around the track a few times, like some of us have, there are a lot of stories every day, every week, every month, and some of them are sad, and some of them are funny, and some of them are poignant, but they're all instructive. Those are the things that people remember. I wanted to tell those. I wanted to share those with somebody or with the people who read the book. That's the main reason.

Nathan Simmonds:

That word you used, which was instructive, now there's a mechanism, a model that I teach which is the drama triangle from a guy called Karpman, Dr. Karpman, phenomenal model for psychology. It's all about drama. But when I talk to people about it, and as you look at soap operas that we watch now, it's all based on drama. The reason the dramas were created, you know the Greeks created drama, was to teach us stories of relationships and how we interact with people. It's just that along the way we forgot to actually view the instruction manual that was being played out for us.

Nathan Simmonds:

And then when you talk about those stories of your experiences, my experiences, us being around the track, those stories have been going on for tens of thousands of years. It's not like they're any different. You share stories about the East India Trading Company and some of those. This stuff, it's almost on rinse and repeat because people aren't paying attention to the stories that are played out previously.

George Troy:

Exactly. Exactly. There's always a consistency. I have one with you I'll share with you right now if you don't mind. We had a store in Manchester, and opened it just before there were some terrible riots in Manchester and throughout England. I forget even what they were about. I think it was some government cutbacks or something. So we were concerned about this, and instructed our store people to lock the stock room, lock up the safe, and lock up the store, and leave. They did because we were concerned about their safety.

George Troy:

Well sure enough, rioters, these hooligans got in, and they broke all the windows and they tore up the store. They didn't get very much. The stock was in the back. But all during this time, our security cameras were running, so we recorded some of this. Well, during the time there were these riots and there were these hooligans in the store, a DHL delivery guy shows up with a pair of special order shoes. He goes through the broken window, and he's got his invoice and a clipboard, and wants somebody to sign it. He gets one of the rioters to sign it, and then he hands them the shoes.

It's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard of. The guy did his job. This was his job, and he did it. He got the signature and all the paperwork was done, and it was funny and at the same time instructive of something, but I'm not quite sure what. You shouldn't always just follow the rules. You should be or one of your people if you're the leader of a team to make decisions on their own. It's not particularly smart to leave shoes with rioters. It doesn't matter if he got the paperwork. And it was all on film and we had it.

Nathan Simmonds:

It almost seems ridiculous. Okay, I've got to go in here and get a signature. Who is the lead rioter here that needs to give me the signature?

George Troy:

Exactly.

Nathan Simmonds:

Nonsensical, yeah, and like you said ... But then you can take that kind of informative thing or approach of actually well what's the leadership lesson here? How can I use this story to actually instruct my leaders in their stores to make sure that, you know what? If things aren't right, what's the best decision you can make? The best decision would have been take the shoes back to where you need to be until this is all over, and then we'll redo it again.

George Troy:

Exactly. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Nathan Simmonds:

And that is the best part. At the same time, should he even be getting out of the van? No. Again, it's just encouraging those leaders to think for themselves. What is the best possible outcome in a crisis situation? Which we're in at the moment as well, as we're recording this. So look, I know this, I'm looking at books up here and up there of management books, of leadership books. What makes this one so helpful?

George Troy:

Thank you for asking that, and I hope that it is helpful. A couple of things, one is that I think sometimes people make things more complicated than they need to be. There's a thing at least I'd always refer to, an affliction called analysis paralysis that some people have.

Now analysis is important, of course, and what you do with it is also important, maybe more than important. I think that what I tried to do is to distil the business principles that I had learned and employed into some very easy to understand and simple things, these five things, through which you can see your activities and your business grow through a lens.

If you filter things through these five things and use those as kind of a level set for what you're doing, it'll be a little easier. It should make your job easier, and more successful, and to avoid failure. That's partly it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Nice. And those five things, this is the five laws of retail, yeah?

George Troy:

Yes.

Nathan Simmonds:

What are the five laws? Come on, give it to us now.

George Troy:

I'm going to do this without looking at my notes. I wrote the book, but sometimes I have to [inaudible 00:09:00] so closely.

...

E15 – Interview With Retail Business Consultant and Author, George Troy

In this episode, I interview George Troy. George is a widely read blogger, author, and consultant focused on retail business communities, including online and brick-and-mortar stores. He has enjoyed decades of real-life experience as a senior executive for some of the best-known and most successful retail companies in the US and globally. A specialist in apparel, footwear, sporting goods, cookware, and home furnishings, Troy has led the retail divisions of Deckers Outdoor (UGG Boots) and outlet divisions of Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn. Today, he reflects upon his years of experience and discusses his new book, The Five Laws of Retail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Record, so I’m recording. We’re live, this is grand. Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Nathan Simmonds. I am working with MBM. We are the soft skills provider for the UK grocery and manufacturing industry. These interviews are about sharing the philosophies and the thinking of great people to help you be the best version of yourself. Today, I’m interviewing George Troy. Now, I’ve had some wonderful conversations with him from everything from chickens to squashes to the five laws of retail which is exponent, expert …

This is his field of genius. I’ve been speaking to him about these, and I want to share some of these ideas with you, or get him to share them with you.

Nathan Simmonds:

I want to introduce him first. I’ve got his bio here and it’s pretty decent reading for someone in the consultancy industry. This is good stuff. 35 years of real life experiences, a senior executive for some of the best known and most successful retail companies across the globe. A specialist in both men’s and women’s apparel, sporting goods, cookware, home furnishings, and he’s even led a retail division of Deckers Outdoor, which we all know as Ugg Boots, Williams Sonoma, and The Pottery Barn.

Key successes, taken Ugg Australia retail sales from 0 to 400 million in the US, Europe, and Asia in just 8 years. That on its own George is a pretty decent celebration right there of a career.

George is currently a consultant with the Grayson Company, based in New York. He’s also serving on the board of directors for two non-profit organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also, he’s got a BA with honours from Berkeley in anthropology, which makes his storytelling unique to say the least, and he uses that as the backbone of his approach to his book, ‘The Five Laws of Retail’. Please, welcome George Troy to the camera and the interview. George, thanks for being here. Really appreciate this.

George Troy:

Well Nathan, thank you very much for that introduction. I’m glad to be with you. It almost sounds like he could never hold down a job.

Nathan Simmonds:

Well I think you’ve got the experience from the apprenticeships of some of your earlier roles, which then got you into Ugg because of that real life experience and the stuff that you cut your teeth with. You know what? Now you’re a consultant doing that for other people. It just increases the impact you get to have on those businesses. You know what? I’d rather you didn’t hold down a job because it means you get to go and see more people and do more good in the world.

George Troy:

That’s true. That’s true. Thank y

E14 – Digital Wellbeing: Interview With Mich Bondesio from Growth Sessions

In this episode, I interview Mich Bondesio. Mich is a business performance mentor, with a 20-year background in communications and project management. Her Growth Sessions mentoring programmes, workshops and talks support business people to build healthier cultures and develop more mindful approaches to work. Mich’s clients include consultants, entrepreneurs and teams working in creative and digital-focused sectors. Today, we discuss digital wellbeing in more detail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews, this is Making Business Matter, MBM, the home of Sticky Learning and the trainer of Soft Skills to the UK retail and manufacturing industry, helping them to increase profits and sales. This interview series is all about speaking to great thinkers and sharing ideas to make that happen.

Nathan Simmonds:

Today, we’ve got Mich Bondesio with us. I hope I pronounced that right, I’ve never checked the pronunciation of your last name, Mich. I do apologize if that’s horrifically wrong. Talking to us today. Thanks very much for being here, Mich. I’m just going to give the guys a quick rundown of who you are, where you come from, and I’m going to get into these questions, okay?

Mich Bondesio:

Okay.

Nathan Simmonds:

So the first thing, Mich is a business performance mentor with a background in communications and project management. Her grow sessions, mentoring programs, workshops and talks support businesses, people to build healthier cultures and develop more mindful approaches to work, which we all need in this day and age, before this and after this. Originally from South Africa, Mich is currently based in the northwest UK, her clients are consultants, solopreneurs, and small teams working in creative and digitally focused sectors around the world. Mostly in the creative space, as far as I’m aware at this point in time.

Nathan Simmonds:

Mich, thanks very much for being here.

Mich Bondesio:

Thanks for inviting me.

Nathan Simmonds:

It was huge, we started to have a bit of a get to know you, which had nothing to do with this interview series, and as that conversation developed and sprouts came out of it, I was just like, some of the stuff you’re talking about is absolutely vital for people to be hearing, from a mental health point of view, from an isolation point of view, which we’re all in right now. I think the majority of people are just starting week three. I know I, we’re a week before that because our work’s starting to slow down, the face-to-face work started to slow down a little bit. So we’ve been isolating for, this would be the beginning of week four.

Nathan Simmonds:

And as we were talking about that you were just saying there’s going to be some critical crunch points that come up through this that you’re kind of aware of. I just thought, you know what? We’ve got share this. We’ve got to give this to people in the work space and th

Episode 14 - Digital Wellbeing: Interview With Mich Bondesio from Growth Sessions

In this episode, I interview Mich Bondesio. Mich is a business-performance mentor, with a 20-year background in communications and project management. Her Growth Sessions mentoring programmes, workshops and talks support business people to build healthier cultures and develop more mindful approaches to work. Mich's clients include consultants, entrepreneurs and teams working in creative and digital-focused sectors. Today, we discuss digital wellbeing in more detail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to Sticky Interviews, this is Making Business Matter, MBM, the home of Sticky Learning and the trainer of Soft Skills to the UK retail and manufacturing industry, helping them to increase profits and sales. This interview series is all about speaking to great thinkers and sharing ideas to make that happen.

Nathan Simmonds:

Today, we've got Mich Bondesio with us. I hope I pronounced that right, I've never checked the pronunciation of your last name, Mich. I do apologize if that's horrifically wrong. Talking to us today. Thanks very much for being here, Mich. I'm just going to give the guys a quick rundown of who you are, where you come from, and I'm going to get into these questions, okay?

Mich Bondesio:

Okay.

Mich Bondesio: performance mentor

 

Nathan Simmonds:

So the first thing, Mich is a business performance mentor with a background in communications and project management. Her grow sessions, mentoring programs, workshops and talks support businesses, people to build healthier cultures and develop more mindful approaches to work, which we all need in this day and age, before this and after this. Originally from South Africa, Mich is currently based in the northwest UK, her clients are consultants, solopreneurs, and small teams working in creative and digitally focused sectors around the world. Mostly in the creative space, as far as I'm aware at this point in time.

Nathan Simmonds:

Mich, thanks very much for being here.

Mich Bondesio:

Thanks for inviting me.

Nathan Simmonds:

It was huge, we started to have a bit of a get to know you, which had nothing to do with this interview series, and as that conversation developed and sprouts came out of it, I was just like, some of the stuff you're talking about is absolutely vital for people to be hearing, from a mental health point of view, from an isolation point of view, which we're all in right now. I think the majority of people are just starting week three. I know I, we're a week before that because our work's starting to slow down, the face-to-face work started to slow down a little bit. So we've been isolating for, this would be the beginning of week four.

Nathan Simmonds:

And as we were talking about that you were just saying there's going to be some critical crunch points that come up through this that you're kind of aware of. I just thought, you know what? We've got share this. We've got to give this to people in the work space and they need to hear what you've got to say about this, to support those consultants and the culture that's coming up out of this.

Nathan Simmonds:

So first of all, thank you as I just said. Please tell everyone what you do and why you do it.

Mich Bondesio:

So, as you mentioned I'm a communications consultant and business performance mentor, and I want to help people to develop more mindful approaches to work because for the past 20 years I've worked in high pressure deadline driven environments and industries and sectors, which have very unsupportive work cultures, and I've also experienced burnout first hand and my burnout was so epic that I wasn't able to work for more than a year. So I have first hand experience of being socially isolated and very unwell and not having a work environment that was supportive of my recovery during that point.

Mich Bondesio:

So I realized actually that we need to be helping others to build their resilience, develop the skills that they need to work better whilst supporting their wellbeing. Because it's all very closely tied, there's a lot of research out there that shows that better selves are better for business, they're better for your bottom line, and if you were humans first and resources second, essentially. So if you put humans at the center of your business, they're going to be better for your business.

Nathan Simmonds:

I love that because I'm guilty of doing it in the past as well. We are humans first before we are resources. The bit that I'm mindful from as a leadership point of view is making sure that we get a balance of both of those. Like you're saying, like people first, so how that links in for me is actually these are human beings, what are their needs, what are their wants, what are their desires, what support do they need, what training do they need, how can we help them do that?

Nathan Simmonds:

Then helping them to see where they're going. Because we can see what they're capable of and the skills they've got, we can then see how they move across the chessboard of business in the nicest possible way, but they're moving to their strengths. I've often referred to people in business, it's like a game of chess and some people are knights and some people are bishops and some people are kings and queens or whatever. But if you try and move a bishop the same way as you move a knight you're going to get some serious resistance from the people around you.

Mich Bondesio:

Correct.

Nathan Simmonds:

So like you say, it's making sure that they are supported, so that actually they feel like they're working optimally.

Mich Bondesio:

And that leads to more engagement and loyalty totally company as well, so they will bring their whole selves to work and they'll give you 110%, because they feel supported and they feel safe within the environment that they're in to deliver their best.

Nathan Simmonds:

Absolutely. And there's plenty of people around here that band these numbers around. 87% of people are not engaged in the work that they're doing and it's leading to millions and billions of pounds, I think even in the UK it's 84 billion I think of lost productivity due to some of these situations. But if you're not feeling productive and you're not feeling like you're contributing, you won't do your best work, and if you go to somewhere that you just genuinely feel unhappy about and you're unsupported in that, burnout is an absolute given, for sure.

Mich Bondesio:

Yeah.

Nathan Simmonds:

Amazing, but then you also talked about that self-isolation piece. It's a personal event for you, so how much are you happy to share about that in what you do?

Mich Bondesio:

I'm happy to share as much as I need to. Actually sharing was part of the last step of the recovery process for me, so I think it's important for people to know why I'm doing what I'm doing now because it had such a profound effect on my life. So I'm happy to share. Through that process of burnout, I kind of rediscovered myself, I developed the skills I needed to support myself better in both working and living. I discovered the importance of solitude as a form of self-awareness and as a way to actually help you develop all of those ideas that we have inside our head but we never get a chance to actually think about or do something about.

Mich Bondesio:

And I also... I discovered that I had far more resilience than I thought I did. And this is an important thing for all of us to know is that we do have resilience within us, to cope with highly stressful situations. We just need to know how to bring it out, we need to know what to do in certain situations. So I'm finding that in this situation, yes it's scary, yes it can be anxiety inducing, it can create a lot of fearfulness within us, but if we have the skills and toolkit that we can call on to support us when we're feeling that way then we can get through it a lot more easily. We feel a lot less paralyzed, we feel a lot less uncertain because we've got the skills to look inward to find that certainty.

Nathan Simmonds:

Thank you. And I do a lot of work inside workplace stress, anxiety and depression. I've suffered with that horrendously myself, I've worked through it, and talk about that resilience to push through. Yes you can still get through it. It doesn't make it easier and eventually that stuff starts to kind of... it can start to weather you and wear you down and then eventually something happens. The key part, as I talked about, is everyone has that resilience.

Nathan Simmonds:

The bit that I often see with people is, especially from the workplace, what we call the normal workplace anxieties and depressions. I have a problem, I feel like this, everyone else looks like they're okay, therefore I don't say anything in case I look like I am the problem or causing a problem. And we keep quiet.

Nathan Simmonds:

And because of that keeping quiet we start to put a lid on things and the pressure builds up and we've got all these coping mechanisms in place and whatever it is, for me it used to be drinking too much coffee, or overworking. And then something happens and then you fall down. No one copes their way out of a crisis. You don't manage yourself out, you know you have to take the lead on that.

Nathan Simmonds:

But then going back through what you're saying, developing ideas, having the solitude and quiet to develop those ideas and come up with new... with a creativity, that actually helps to improve where you're at.

Mich Bondesio:

Correct. We're all capable of creativity, we're just not aware of it. But creativity needs a little bit... sometimes a bit of a constraint can help but it also needs space and time and very often our modern workplace does not allow for that, because we are constantly on and we're multitasking, even though that's not something that our brain can do,...

Episode 13 - Conscious Culture: Interview With Natasha Wallace from Conscious Works

In this episode, I interview Natasha Wallace, the author of The Conscious Effect: 50 lessons for better organizational wellbeing. Natasha is also the founder of Conscious Works, a coaching company that helps leaders to lead consciously. Today we discuss conscious culture in more detail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to the Making Business Matter Podcast. Currently, we're meeting niche leaders and change-makers. Those exciting people that are helping to make business future proof. Today we're going to be speaking to Natasha Wallace from Conscious Works. So a little bit about Natasha, we've got her blurb here, her bio.

Nathan Simmonds:

A lady with a particular interest in what causes leadership discomfort. She recognizes that ladies are time poor and under pressure. Natasha is helping them to focus on who they are and where they need to be. Allowing them to achieve the best results for themselves and their teams.

Nathan Simmonds:

With a career in high HR leadership and organizational development, roles across a range of sectors, and her most recent role was as a people and development director, which is blessed her with a depth of practical experience for building cohesive and impactful teams. And now her work is all about sharing this with other people.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome Natasha. Really great to be interviewing you. First and foremost, I want to find out a bit more about you. We've had a bit of a conversation already.

ConsciousWorks - coaching company

 

I want the people listening to this to find out a bit more about you. So, who are you and why do you do what you do?

Natasha Wallace:

Okay. I've spent my career working in HR. Predominantly in organizational development roles. I've always led HR teams. But I've always had a particular passion for how you create great cultures. And how do you optimize the performance of business whilst keeping people happy? Because I've always believed that those two things should sort of work in synergy with each other.

Natasha Wallace:

My career has seen me manage culture change projects. I've lead the development of leadership development programs and co-design, co-facilitate those. I do a lot of work around talent management and career management. I spent 10 years in professional services up until starting my own business.

Natasha Wallace:

That was quite interesting actually. Being with an organization for so long because it's about how do you sustain the performance? How do you put things in place that are actually going to work for the long term? And I worked as part of a partnership. Our whole modus operandi I guess was, well we called ourselves a ‘Succession partnerships’. We were developing people for the future.

Natasha Wallace:

So we wanted to put as much into people and get them as I guess, developed as we could because we would hope that some of those people would take over the running of the business in the future. I was immersed in a world where sustainable performance was really, really important.

Natasha Wallace:

And that's part of what I do now is; how do you help leaders to work in a way and operate in a way, run their businesses in a way that they can achieve performance? Because that's ultimately what we are trying to do in organizations, but without sacrificing wellbeing.

Natasha Wallace:

Then I burnt out myself. I didn't achieve high performance without sacrificing wellbeing, so that was my own personal experience. That was a real wake up call to me. So about three years ago I hit the wall, so to speak. It was a real surprise for me because given that in my mind I was somebody who understood how to achieve sustainable performance and also had to take care of people.

Natasha Wallace:

I guess part of the role of the HR professional is making sure that you are taking care of the people. But I didn't take care of myself. That taught me an awful lot about being a leader and achieving good results. I'm massively achievement orientated so I'm quite driven in that respect. But how do you do that in a way that enables you to level log healthy, happy life at the same time? And I think the modern-day leaders, that is a challenge.

Nathan Simmonds:

When you talk about sustainability as HR leader and the teacher of people, you have to be walking the talk. As teachers in the leadership development space, it's okay that you can read stuff from a textbook, but if you haven't got the skills to prove actually this is how it works and this is how it benefits other people, people tend not to see a certain amount of credibility where they want... What's the word I'm looking for?

Nathan Simmonds:

They just don't believe you. You can tell me that, but actually, how is it relevant to your life? How's it relevant to my life? What are those experiences you're sharing that actually make me want to actually live by what you're teaching me?

Natasha Wallace:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm quite lucky to have had the experiences I have because I've been an employee, a leader, somebody who's working with the board to try and drive performance, and I've also developed leaders, so I feel like I've sort of seen all sides of it. And I have made my own mistakes as a leader, I didn't get it right all of the time. Sometimes I got it quite badly wrong, so I've certainly learned from that and I've learned from my own burner experience.

Natasha Wallace:

So almost sort of triangulating all of that knowledge, I now really trying to, I guess, help leaders avoid that same fate. It's interesting actually, I can remember getting to a point when I was running the people and development function in my last role and things had gone relatively well for a few years.

Natasha Wallace:

Even on reflection, I think that we delivered pretty good performance. Our engagement levels were always pretty high, I had a good relationship with the team. It was a growing team, so it ended up being quite big in the end. But we did it, to the point where I knew that my team were overworked, I knew that their customers, so leaders in the business weren't always happy with what we were doing and there was a bit of resistance and pushback, so they had to deal with some difficult challenging conversations and situations.

Natasha Wallace:

And I knew that they all wanted to do a really good job, but I was so in it. I was so close to the situation and knew that I needed to improve things for them. Make the environment easier for them and remove some of the obstacles and strain on them, but it was really hard to do that. You almost wish there was somebody like me who was able to come in as an objective person, like a safe person to have-

Nathan Simmonds:

And shine a light on it fully, just say, "You need to see this."

Natasha Wallace:

Absolutely. And I would have wanted that person to go and speak to the team and have honest conversations with them, and come back to me and say, "This is actually what's going on." So I could go, "Oh, okay." And even if that was about me, I would have wanted to have had it and I think that's what being a conscious leader is about.

Natasha Wallace:

Sometimes you have to hear difficult stuff, you have to be willing to hear things about yourself. You have to be willing to change things. You have to be willing to I guess get a bit more uncomfortable before you get more comfortable for the sake of the greater good, but I didn't have that and actually I ended up on this hamster wheel of having the same problems going round the same problems, not being able to fix them. It was massively frustrating and challenging as a leader.

Nathan Simmonds:

I think it's Neil Donald Walsh said, "Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone." And to expand as leaders, as parents, as entrepreneurs, we have to be a conscious enough to say, "Actually, I don't know this, I don't have all the answers. I can see how this is going down." And have a little bit of forethought and that long time you were talking about earlier, "Okay, what's going to happen? If we continue down this road, is it positive or negative?"

Nathan Simmonds:

And then having the ability to say, "You know what? We've gone down this path far enough, actually this isn't okay. We either need to change track and jump across or we need to backtrack and then take a different route with a bit more clarity."

Natasha Wallace:

Absolutely.

Nathan Simmonds:

And a lot of leaders, I think when they're so far in the trenches, they suddenly think that they can't own up to this, they can't put their hand up and say they were wrong or they've made a mistake, and they feel like they've got too far in to pull out and then something breaks, and something catastrophic happens.

Natasha Wallace:

Yeah, definitely. I think also as leaders, you expect yourself to have the answers, so I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be able to figure it out. I've certainly learned the power of co-creation is awesome in so far as speaking to two or three people outside of yourself to get their perspective and input can be the thing that really unlocks the answers to the problems.

Natasha Wallace:

When I say leader, I mean anybody who has got responsibility for people. You might call yourself a manager but you're still responsible for leading people. And I see junior managers and fairly young managers in the same situation. I don't necessarily think that this is something that comes with years and years of experience.

Natasha Wallace:

You get given responsibility for other people and very often you think, okay, now I need to know exactly what I'm doing. And so you don't necessarily speak up about the challenges that you're facing, or the difficulties, or the discomfort you're feeling as a manager, and so you just knuckle down and get on with it and hope for the best.

Natasha Wallace:

...

E13 – Conscious Culture: Interview With Natasha Wallace from Conscious Works

In this episode, I interview Natasha Wallace, the author of The Conscious Effect: 50 lessons for better organizational wellbeing. Natasha is also the founder of Conscious Works, a coaching company that helps leaders to lead consciously. Today we discuss conscious culture in more detail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome to the Making Business Matter Podcast. Currently, we’re meeting niche leaders and change-makers. Those exciting people that are helping to make business future proof. Today we’re going to be speaking to Natasha Wallace from Conscious Works. So a little bit about Natasha, we’ve got her blurb here, her bio.

Nathan Simmonds:

A lady with a particular interest in what causes leadership discomfort. She recognizes that ladies are time poor and under pressure. Natasha is helping them to focus on who they are and where they need to be. Allowing them to achieve the best results for themselves and their teams.

Nathan Simmonds:

With a career in high HR leadership and organizational development, roles across a range of sectors, and her most recent role was as a people and development director, which is blessed her with a depth of practical experience for building cohesive and impactful teams. And now her work is all about sharing this with other people.

Nathan Simmonds:

Welcome Natasha. Really great to be interviewing you. First and foremost, I want to find out a bit more about you. We’ve had a bit of a conversation already.

I want the people listening to this to find out a bit more about you. So, who are you and why do you do what you do?

Natasha Wallace:

Okay. I’ve spent my career working in HR. Predominantly in organizational development roles. I’ve always led HR teams. But I’ve always had a particular passion for how you create great cultures. And how do you optimize the performance of business whilst keeping people happy? Because I’ve always believed that those two things should sort of work in synergy with each other.

Natasha Wallace:

My career has seen me manage culture change projects. I’ve lead the development of leadership development programs and co-design, co-facilitate those. I do a lot of work around talent management and career management. I spent 10 years in professional services up until starting my own business.

Natasha Wallace:

That was quite interesting actually. Being with an organization for so long because it’s about how do you sustain the performance? How do you put things in place that are actually going to work for the long term? And I worked as part of a partnership. Our whole modus operandi I guess was, well we called ourselves a ‘Succession partnerships’. We were developing people for the future.

Natasha Wallace:

So we wanted to put as much into people and get them as I guess, developed as

E12 – Professor Damian Hughes: A Change Management Catalyst and Professor of Organisational Psychology and Change

An image of professor Damian Hughes, the light is focused on him, darkness consumes the background.

Read the Interview Transcript Below:

Jo Palmer: ‘We are doing an expert interview, and today I’m with Damian Hughes. We are talking largely about organisation development. So rather than me introduce your credentials, Damian, I think you’d do a better job than me.’

Damian Hughes: ‘Well, thanks for inviting me on, Jo. It’s a real honour to sort of chat with you. For anyone listening it’s probably easier to explain the jobs I do, to give some context. So I’m a professor of organizational psychology and change, that’s my main role. But I work as a consultant psychologist across a wide range of organisations from business to sport to education. And then the third job I do is I write. So I’ve done a number of books very much around the topics of high performing cultures and how and how to make change happen.’

The Barcelona Way

Jo Palmer: ‘Fantastic. Before we get into organisational development, let’s touch on your most recent book, The Barcelona Way, which is currently ranking on Amazon’s best sellers. Damian, what was your inspiration for writing this book?’

Damian Hughes: ‘Yeah, so I got approached a number of years ago by a publisher who asked if I’d be interested in writing a book on the topic of culture. And I said I’d love to do it. They said, would I be interested in trying to make it a little bit more accessible by viewing it through the lens of a sports team?’

DH: ‘Now, while that sounded an intriguing challenge, the reality is, like a lot of businesses, a lot of sports teams sort of pay lip service to the topic of culture. So they’ll tell you how important it is. But their genuine level of investment, or interest, or focus tends to be quite minimal. So we narrowed it down to three teams that genuinely use culture as a competitive advantage. So the first one was the New Zealand Rugby Union team. The second one was the New England Patriots in the NFL. And then the third one was FC Barcelona.’

‘Choose Barcelona’

Damian Hughes: ‘So I think it was air fair costs that meant the publisher said, “Choose Barcelona.” But the reality was, it was the one that I felt had almost been unexplored and it was really rich to link it. So what the idea was was, I looked at culture through the lens of how Barcelona had decided to follow this process known as a commitment culture. And a commitment culture is where you have a really clear set of principles or behaviours, and you’ve got a really clear sense to why you exist. And what all the evidence says from all the research on the topic is a commitment culture tends to be a lot more successful over a sustained period than any other type of culture.’

DH: &

E12 - Professor Damian Hughes: A Change Management Catalyst and Professor of Organisational Psychology and Change.

Read the Interview Transcript Below:

Jo Palmer: 'We are doing an expert interview, and today I'm with Damian Hughes. We are talking largely about organisation development. So rather than me introduce your credentials, Damian, I think you'd do a better job than me.'

Damian Hughes: 'Well, thanks for inviting me on, Jo. It's a real honour to sort of chat with you. For anyone listening it's probably easier to explain the jobs I do, to give some context. So I'm a professor of organizational psychology and change, that's my main role. But I work as a consultant psychologist across a wide range of organisations from business to sport to education. And then the third job I do is I write. So I've done a number of books very much around the topics of high performing cultures and how and how to make change happen.'

The Barcelona Way

Jo Palmer: 'Fantastic. Before we get into organisational development, let's touch on your most recent book, The Barcelona Way, which is currently ranking on Amazon's best sellers. Damian, what was your inspiration for writing this book?'

Damian Hughes: 'Yeah, so I got approached a number of years ago by a publisher who asked if I'd be interested in writing a book on the topic of culture. And I said I'd love to do it. They said, would I be interested in trying to make it a little bit more accessible by viewing it through the lens of a sports team?'

DH: 'Now, while that sounded an intriguing challenge, the reality is, like a lot of businesses, a lot of sports teams sort of pay lip service to the topic of culture. So they'll tell you how important it is. But their genuine level of investment, or interest, or focus tends to be quite minimal. So we narrowed it down to three teams that genuinely use culture as a competitive advantage. So the first one was the New Zealand Rugby Union team. The second one was the New England Patriots in the NFL. And then the third one was FC Barcelona.'

'Choose Barcelona'

Damian Hughes: 'So I think it was air fair costs that meant the publisher said, "Choose Barcelona." But the reality was, it was the one that I felt had almost been unexplored and it was really rich to link it. So what the idea was was, I looked at culture through the lens of how Barcelona had decided to follow this process known as a commitment culture. And a commitment culture is where you have a really clear set of principles or behaviours, and you've got a really clear sense to why you exist. And what all the evidence says from all the research on the topic is a commitment culture tends to be a lot more successful over a sustained period than any other type of culture.'

DH: 'So I look at the different types of cultures, but then specifically this idea of a commitment culture and how that can be used and harnessed within any organisation, so anywhere where people are coming together for a common cause, how you can use it to then drive competitive advantage.'

Damian Hughes, the interview will conduct of him explaining organisational psychology and change

 

How Long Did it Take?

Jo Palmer: 'Fantastic. Brilliant. How long did it take you to write it, Damian?'

Damian Hughes: 'It ended up being about three years. So I was back and forth from Catalonia for about 18 months, back and forth doing interviews and things like that. But a lot of the research in terms of the most recent research and the papers, that took an awful lot of wading through to be able to give people sort of the idea that it isn't just about sport, it's about people that just happen to work in sport in this case. I'm lucky enough I've done a number of books, Jo. So what I've realised now is that you have to really be intrigued and love the topic, because it ends up dominating an awful lot of your waking hours. So it was a real three-year labour of love.'

Favourite Book

Jo Palmer: 'Wow. Out of all the books you've written, Damian, which has been your favourite and why?'

Damian Hughes: 'Oh, that's a difficult one, that's like asking to choose your favourite child. I love them all they're all subjects that I really am passionate about. They often remind me of certain times in my life. The book I wrote previous to The Barcelona Way was a book called The Winning Mindset, and that was a whole series of interviews that I did with elite sports coaches, but looking at the topic of engagement, so how do you get people switched on and engaged? But we again, we viewed it couldn't lens of the sporting world. I'd probably say particularly fond of that because I almost wrote it... So it's a bit of a love letter to my dad.'

'A Love Letter to My Dad'

Damian Hughes 'My dad's quite poorly now, but he was in elite boxing coach all through my childhood. So my background is I grew up in a boxing gym. While he's poorly now I wouldn't to sort of pay tribute to some of the stuff that I'd seen him do. So I include some of the stories from his own career as well. But in my head, it was a bit of a love letter to my dad and the sort of work he'd done.'

JP: 'Oh, how lovely.'

DH: 'Yeah. But I'd say The Barcelona Way is a love letter to my professional life as well because that's where I've ended up spending a huge proportion of my working life has been working around this topic of creating high performing culture. So yeah, I'm just as fond of that as well.'

JP: 'Yeah. Well, I won't make you choose one then, Damian. That's fine.'

DH: 'You won't what? Sorry.'

JP: 'I won't make you choose one.'

DH: 'No, yeah, it's a brilliant question. I've never really thought about it. But like you say, when I reflect on it it is like choosing your favourite child, which is not something you could really do.'

JP: 'I get it. Because if someone said to me, "Jo, pick your favourite child." I wouldn't be able to. I love that answer.'

DH: 'Thank you.'

Organisational Development

Jo Palmer: 'Thanks for that, Damian. Let's talk about organisational development.'

Damian Hughes: 'Okay, brilliant.'

JP: 'What is organisational development and what are the key values?'

DH: 'So organisational development is the idea of how do you create an environment where people can flourish and blossom, and subsequently perform at their best? That's the purpose of it. Now, the best way I would describe that is it's like an ecosystem. There's a whole series of different strands that have to come together to be able to facilitate people for performing at their best. So there's no silver bullet answer to this. There's no one size fits all. It will always be unique to the organisation. This will range from things like your guided behaviours. It will be about your speed and ability to transition quickly. This will be the things that you get that are most important in terms of delivery, people development, leadership development, all of this comes together. So it's quite a complex area.'

'Start at the Idea of Behaviours'

Damian Hughes: 'But I think that when you work with teams, a lot of organisations that are looking to understand organisational development and how it can be a competitive advantage, the place I would urge anyone to start is start at the idea of behaviours. Now I make a distinction here between organisational values and organisational behaviours. So what I mean is that values are quite an abstract term. You can say that you want people to adopt a value of being fair or demonstrating trust. But the reality is people can just say, "Yes, I agree with that." Without ever needing to give you any evidence of it. A behaviour is something that you have to clearly demonstrate.'

DH: 'One of the big things that I find often inhibits performance in organisations, Jo, is ambiguity. So when things are ambiguous or when things are a little bit opaque and not particularly clear, you get confused reactions, people behave in a subjective way. When people behave subjectively, you get lack of consistency, which is a big frustration, whereas high performing organizations consistently deliver.'

DH: 'So that's why I think behaviour has become really important to be able to articulate, what are the non-negotiable behaviours? So the phrase I use is I talk about, what your trademark behaviours? So the behaviours that define you when you're at your very best.'

'What Elite Cultures Do Is They Prioritise'

Damian Hughes: "The second mistake I see a lot of organisations do is though they might go down the behavioural route, they come up with a big long shopping list of all the behaviours they want people to adopt. What elite cultures do is they prioritise. So they don't have any more than three behaviours, three non-negotiable trademark behaviours. And a nice way of doing this, if there's anyone listening to this that think they'd be interested in maybe adopting it in their world, the exercise I encourage everyone to do is something called success leaves clues."

DH: 'Now, what that means is you start by answering the question, "When we're good, why are we good?" When you're able to articulate what good looks like in your world, you will find consistently present behaviours that exist. And then they become almost your foundation stone to build the culture on this. So the idea is, how do you then create an organisation that facilitates the delivery of those behaviours at the highest level as consistently as possible?'

JP: 'Wow. So it's about simplifying it to get the best of the behaviours.'

Types of Cultures

Damian Hughes: 'Yeah, and that's often a big challenge for all of us, like I say, that what you find is that I've made reference from, we're talking about different types of cultures, and one type of culture that often can exist is a bureaucratic culture, the bureaucratic culture is almost where it's driven by rules and regulations and policies and procedures. So decisions tend to be made by a consensus....

E11 – Don’t Be a Cabbage Butterfly – Stop Task Switching for Better Time Management

You start a task and another one comes up. You do that, and another one comes up. So, you then do that. Until – you guessed it – another one comes up! You are task switching.

This, according to the time management gurus, adds 50% to the original task. In short, by switching concentration and having to adapt your thought processes from task to task, you are adding 50% of the time to it. This is because your concentration needs to adapt. Different skills are required to complete different tasks. It will take time to adapt your thinking and understand the new task.

According to the Harvard Business Review, task switching can take up to 20 minutes. Managing emails being the biggest culprit for creating distractions.

We are losing vital minutes from our already busy days.

A Purple Cabbage, sat within a bright yellow background.

Listen to this podcast to stop task switching and losing these vital minutes. Focus on what is really important. Remember why you’re on the payroll and consider the seven big things that help get your job done.

Read the Transcript Below:

“You’re jumping from one task to another all day long, switching between this and that and the next thing to do. My name is Darren Smith and you’re at the Home of Sticky Learning. We’re going to talk about Short and Sticky Stories.”

“When I was about six years old, I remember my dad took me into the garden every Saturday. He was very proud of his garden. We only had a small garden and it had a veg patch. Two levels to the small garden and we’d go out there and on a Saturday it was that father-son bonding time. I remember I had those red wellies on that I think you bought from Woolworths called ladybird. Anyway. My dad and I are in the garden and he’s proud of what he’s achieved in that garden. I guess for him it was a way of reducing stress from what was quite a tough and demanding job.”

Cabbages

“His veg patch was something he was particularly proud of. Imagine a six-foot by three-foot veg patch and it grew carrots, runner beans, cabbages. Now, don’t tell him, but the runner beans, you could have used them for dental floss. They were stringing and every Sunday we would have those runner beans because dad had grown them and the kids would eat them on wait mode because they were stringing. But let’s come back to the cabbages. The reason I wanted to tell you this story was because i

You start a task and another one comes up. You do that, and another one comes up. So, you then do that. Until - you guessed it - another one comes up! You are task switching.