Rethink Culture

[00:00:07.13 - 00:00:09.18] Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
[00:00:09.18 - 00:00:14.05] Welcome to the Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines a spotlight on leaders
[00:00:14.05 - 00:00:17.14] of businesses that people love to work for.
[00:00:17.14 - 00:00:20.05] My name is Andreas Konstantinou and I'm your host.
[00:00:20.05 - 00:00:23.10] I'm the founder of Rethink Culture, a company that helps businesses create a
[00:00:23.10 - 00:00:28.13] happier, healthier workplace culture by auditing their culture.
[00:00:28.16 - 00:00:32.13] Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Dominic Monkhouse.
[00:00:32.20 - 00:00:37.14] I met him through his book first, which is Mind Your F**ing Business.
[00:00:37.14 - 00:00:42.08] Dominic has a remarkable track record of scaling technology service businesses from
[00:00:42.08 - 00:00:45.23] zero to 30 million pounds in just five years.
[00:00:46.01 - 00:00:50.17] He's done this with two firms in the UK, Rackspace and Pier 1 Hosting, where he
[00:00:50.17 - 00:00:51.18] served as managing director.
[00:00:51.18 - 00:00:54.08] He's also the author of Mind Your F**ing Business.
[00:00:54.08 - 00:00:57.18] So you can guess he does not mince his words.
[00:00:57.20 - 00:01:02.17] And he's also the host of the same title podcast, Mind Your F**ing Business, which
[00:01:02.17 - 00:01:05.11] just reached 300 episodes.
[00:01:05.11 - 00:01:10.18] He tells me he's happily divorced, he has a farm and he's a father of four children.
[00:01:10.18 - 00:01:13.14] Very welcome to the podcast, Dominic.
[00:01:13.23 - 00:01:16.07] Thank you very much, I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:17.00 - 00:01:19.17] So, where do we start?
[00:01:20.15 - 00:01:24.05] Tell us a bit about culture and why it's relevant to you.
[00:01:25.09 - 00:01:35.00] I think back over my career and as you were talking at the intro about companies
[00:01:35.00 - 00:01:37.13] that people want to work for.
[00:01:37.13 - 00:01:42.13] I've worked at some terrible places and I've worked at some amazing places.
[00:01:42.13 - 00:01:46.16] I've worked at some terrible places in great teams and I've worked in some
[00:01:46.16 - 00:01:48.18] terrible teams at great places.
[00:01:48.18 - 00:01:55.15] And so I think that if you can get great teams in great companies, they are...
[00:01:55.23 - 00:02:00.00] five times, 10 times, more productive, more performant.
[00:02:00.00 - 00:02:04.08] I've also played in some sports teams and that's been great fun.
[00:02:04.08 - 00:02:05.16] I've been on leadership teams.
[00:02:05.16 - 00:02:08.20] I've been on particularly one leadership team that I think is the best team I've
[00:02:08.20 - 00:02:10.06] ever worked with.
[00:02:10.11 - 00:02:17.06] And it just, you have more energy, you're challenged, life's more fulfilling.
[00:02:17.06 - 00:02:21.22] You're getting paid the same, but everything's better.
[00:02:21.22 - 00:02:26.03] And so if you can create a great culture where people wanna come to work
[00:02:26.12 - 00:02:29.15] just, it's just more joyous.
[00:02:30.15 - 00:02:35.09] So that's, I just, I think it's just, I mean, sometimes I feel really sad because
[00:02:35.09 - 00:02:38.04] I will ask a question of clients I'm working with.
[00:02:38.04 - 00:02:41.10] And I'll say, think about the best team you've ever been on.
[00:02:41.10 - 00:02:45.07] And sometimes people will say, I don't think I've ever been on a good team.
[00:02:45.07 - 00:02:48.12] And it's just like, man, you've never had a good job.
[00:02:48.12 - 00:02:50.00] You've never worked in a great company.
[00:02:50.00 - 00:02:53.19] You've never really jumped out of bed in the morning and like lept into work.
[00:02:53.19 - 00:02:55.00] And they're like, no.
[00:02:56.12 - 00:02:58.07] I feel sorry for you.
[00:02:58.07 - 00:03:02.17] Not having actually a company that you love to work for is like not having fell
[00:03:02.17 - 00:03:05.07] in love ever, right?
[00:03:05.07 - 00:03:13.17] Yeah, yeah, it's like reading about it, but thinking the whole thing's a con.
[00:03:13.23 - 00:03:19.13] Or yeah, it's like, yeah, it's a fairy tale, that's what other people do.
[00:03:19.14 - 00:03:23.15] And thinking somehow you're being scammed by the rest of the world.
[00:03:24.10 - 00:03:28.05] I hope these people then do end up in a great company, because they'll be like, my
[00:03:28.05 - 00:03:28.13] God.
[00:03:28.13 - 00:03:32.01] I have to say, there are some people who've worked for me in the past, and they
[00:03:32.01 - 00:03:34.12] have said to me, you ruined my life.
[00:03:34.22 - 00:03:36.04] And I said, what do you mean?
[00:03:36.04 - 00:03:39.17] And Sarah said to me a few years ago, she said, Dom, working for you ruined
[00:03:39.17 - 00:03:40.07] my life.
[00:03:40.07 - 00:03:45.01] She said, every other company I've been to since has just been the disappointment.
[00:03:45.14 - 00:03:49.08] And it's like, but at least she knows, at least she knows what it has.
[00:03:49.08 - 00:03:52.02] Yes, and you keep looking until you find it.
[00:03:52.02 - 00:03:56.22] In a similar sense, it's like if you've been through a difficult relationship that
[00:03:56.22 - 00:04:03.12] feels like it's not right for you or you are struggling through and unless you've
[00:04:03.12 - 00:04:06.16] been in a really good relationship, you don't know where the bar is.
[00:04:06.16 - 00:04:09.04] You don't know what's normal and what isn't.
[00:04:09.04 - 00:04:12.14] I mean, that's my experience from my first marriage.
[00:04:12.15 - 00:04:15.11] And I didn't know where the bar should be.
[00:04:15.15 - 00:04:18.03] And I wasn't very happy.
[00:04:20.05 - 00:04:26.07] But same with a workplace, unless, like if you hire someone really young, unless they
[00:04:26.07 - 00:04:32.01] have worked for someone else who's like average, they won't appreciate what you're
[00:04:32.01 - 00:04:33.05] doing for them, right?
[00:04:33.05 - 00:04:37.05] You know, the number of conversations I have with people where, you know, we're
[00:04:37.05 - 00:04:43.07] talking about graduates and, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day and
[00:04:43.07 - 00:04:44.06] he went, right, yes.
[00:04:44.06 - 00:04:47.08] He said, we're not hiring people who this is their first job.
[00:04:47.08 - 00:04:51.01] We're only hiring people for whom this is their second or probably third job.
[00:04:51.01 - 00:04:53.07] Because then they know what they're looking for.
[00:04:53.07 - 00:04:56.21] And when they come in through our front door and we interview them, they go, "Yes,
[00:04:56.21 - 00:04:59.09] you are what, I know what I'm looking for.
[00:04:59.09 - 00:05:01.20] I'm a discerning purchaser of a company.
[00:05:02.02 - 00:05:05.12] You are the company I want to come and work for." And he said, it's just, cause
[00:05:05.12 - 00:05:10.23] that sort of first job, I think we used to have maybe a 50 % failure rate with, you
[00:05:10.23 - 00:05:13.20] know, like we do all the interview, we do all the tests.
[00:05:13.20 - 00:05:15.01] They said they wanted the job.
[00:05:15.01 - 00:05:18.17] We said we want to hire them, but you know, six months in, this wasn't the job
[00:05:18.17 - 00:05:19.03] for them.
[00:05:19.03 - 00:05:21.05] They didn't actually, maybe it wasn't the job for them.
[00:05:21.05 - 00:05:23.14] Some of them didn't actually want to work.
[00:05:24.00 - 00:05:28.18] So, so there was a very high churn rate with that sort of graduate hire.
[00:05:28.18 - 00:05:29.21] Yeah.
[00:05:30.14 - 00:05:34.12] I want to go to a paradigm used before, the sports team.
[00:05:34.18 - 00:05:39.21] And often we talked about, we talk about businesses as a sports team or a family.
[00:05:39.21 - 00:05:46.22] Is there like a correct paradigm for what a business should strive to be?
[00:05:49.03 - 00:05:57.00] Well, there are, I like the sports team, but I only like the sports team if we're
[00:05:57.00 - 00:06:03.09] doing high performing teams rather than, you know, Sunday pub league.
[00:06:05.05 - 00:06:09.20] And I think a high performing team, high performing sports team, I also think
[00:06:09.20 - 00:06:12.09] football is better than say basketball.
[00:06:14.04 - 00:06:17.10] I've got this sort of in my head, this,
[00:06:17.10 - 00:06:19.18] Startups are like basketball, right?
[00:06:19.18 - 00:06:22.17] You know, you have two or three start founders, they're amazing.
[00:06:22.17 - 00:06:30.02] And then they carry a team, maybe 15 or 20 or 30 people who are, you know, they're
[00:06:30.02 - 00:06:32.12] head and shoulders above the people they hire.
[00:06:32.12 - 00:06:35.20] But they've got to transition that into something that looks more like a football
[00:06:35.20 - 00:06:36.20] team.
[00:06:37.06 - 00:06:42.04] And there's a great book on, some guys did us some, I think it's, the beautiful game,
[00:06:42.04 - 00:06:42.15] is it called?
[00:06:42.15 - 00:06:44.02] Anyway, it's all about statistics.
[00:06:44.02 - 00:06:46.08] It's like Moneyball, but in European soccer leagues.
[00:06:46.08 - 00:06:47.02] okay.
[00:06:47.15 - 00:06:53.13] And they said, look, the ultimate long -term performance of a club is driven not
[00:06:53.13 - 00:06:58.09] by how many superstars they hire, but it's about raising the bar.
[00:06:58.09 - 00:07:01.10] So what you have to do is you have to systematically remove the weakest
[00:07:01.10 - 00:07:06.10] performer because the weakest performers make all of the mistakes and the mistakes
[00:07:06.10 - 00:07:10.01] are the way you craft luck to your competitors.
[00:07:10.18 - 00:07:16.07] And so I just think, you know, that is a great...
[00:07:16.07 - 00:07:18.15] But that's not how we played football at school.
[00:07:18.15 - 00:07:20.09] Certainly not in my school.
[00:07:20.13 - 00:07:23.12] There weren't enough great players.
[00:07:23.12 - 00:07:26.14] So the football teams I played on at school looked a bit more like basketball
[00:07:26.14 - 00:07:30.07] players, like four or five great kids and the rest of us carried, made up the
[00:07:30.07 - 00:07:30.23] numbers.
[00:07:30.23 - 00:07:35.07] And so I think that paradigm moving to a professional football team.
[00:07:35.07 - 00:07:38.19] The other thing is that when I'm working with clients, often I say to them, look in
[00:07:38.19 - 00:07:44.03] the UK, think about the UK Football League, Soccer League, where are you?
[00:07:44.03 - 00:07:45.16] You're in division three?
[00:07:45.19 - 00:07:49.07] You know, and are you hoping to go to the championship and maybe the premiership as
[00:07:49.07 - 00:07:50.14] you scale?
[00:07:50.16 - 00:07:54.10] And how many of the players, how many of the people in your company do you think
[00:07:54.10 - 00:07:57.08] will still be on the field when we get to the Premier League?
[00:07:57.08 - 00:08:01.01] Or how many people on your leadership team, if your leadership team is the team,
[00:08:01.01 - 00:08:03.01] will still be in the seat?
[00:08:03.01 - 00:08:06.20] And what, if you want them to be there, what do we need to achieve?
[00:08:06.20 - 00:08:10.05] And I find that very useful, because when you say that about somebody else's
[00:08:10.05 - 00:08:12.11] football team, they say, well, probably nobody.
[00:08:12.23 - 00:08:16.12] And when they think about their own team, that's not their hope and desire and
[00:08:16.12 - 00:08:17.10] aspiration.
[00:08:17.10 - 00:08:21.05] They would really like their entire team to be there on the whole journey.
[00:08:21.05 - 00:08:28.11] And they find it incredibly difficult and stressful when that doesn't happen.
[00:08:28.11 - 00:08:31.22] This person that we've worked with for five years when there were five of us
[00:08:31.22 - 00:08:38.14] around the kitchen table, now has no longer got the skills that we need to hold
[00:08:38.14 - 00:08:40.06] down the seat that they've had before.
[00:08:40.06 - 00:08:40.20] Yeah.
[00:08:40.20 - 00:08:46.16] And the paradigm, what got us here won't get us there, has helped me with a lot of
[00:08:46.16 - 00:08:51.15] people decisions for people who won't grow while the company will grow.
[00:08:51.21 - 00:08:53.08] Yeah, it's that.
[00:08:53.08 - 00:08:57.07] The growth rate of the leaders has to be faster than the growth of the company.
[00:08:57.07 - 00:09:00.18] Otherwise, they're gonna get left behind, or they're gonna stifle the potential
[00:09:00.18 - 00:09:02.15] performance of the organization.
[00:09:02.18 - 00:09:03.17] Right.
[00:09:03.18 - 00:09:09.16] And the related question that you might ask, I think I've seen it in scaling up
[00:09:09.16 - 00:09:14.02] books, who would you enthusiastically rehire and who not?
[00:09:14.06 - 00:09:20.14] Well, I ask, I mean, so Jim Collins in Good to Great has those two questions,
[00:09:20.16 - 00:09:24.08] which I use the same wording that Netflix do.
[00:09:24.08 - 00:09:26.23] So it's the monthly keeper test.
[00:09:27.11 - 00:09:31.20] And it's that, who would you, so I'm talking to people all the time.
[00:09:32.05 - 00:09:38.03] I reread BE 2.0, sort of Jim Collins's refresh of his first book a couple of
[00:09:38.03 - 00:09:38.11] years ago.
[00:09:38.11 - 00:09:39.15] And I realized that,
[00:09:39.15 - 00:09:44.11] I was doing my clients a disservice by not being maniacal enough about people.
[00:09:44.11 - 00:09:52.20] And so I am now obsessive and rude about people, just to make sure that they take
[00:09:52.20 - 00:09:55.08] decisions seriously enough and fast enough.
[00:09:55.08 - 00:09:58.23] And so it's like, ask those two questions every month of people who report directly
[00:09:58.23 - 00:09:59.13] to you.
[00:09:59.13 - 00:10:05.22] Knowing what I know about them now, would I, a) enthusiastically rehire them and
[00:10:05.22 - 00:10:07.22] fight to keep them if they resigned.
[00:10:07.22 - 00:10:12.20] And you have to say yes and yes, otherwise you have to get them off the bus or in a
[00:10:12.20 - 00:10:18.13] different seat or narrow their role or something, but you can't carry on.
[00:10:19.04 - 00:10:23.18] And so quite often now, and we had a client here the other week and the CFO was
[00:10:24.04 - 00:10:26.09] massively overwhelmed.
[00:10:26.13 - 00:10:33.06] But when we got into his team, he had three people in his team that frankly, he
[00:10:33.06 - 00:10:35.02] wouldn't enthusiastically rehire.
[00:10:35.02 - 00:10:35.21] He said,
[00:10:35.21 - 00:10:38.13] He said, that's quite a high bar enthusiastically.
[00:10:38.13 - 00:10:43.05] And I said, yeah, but then, you know, they're already at the point where the job
[00:10:43.05 - 00:10:48.15] is too big for them and you're covering for them, which is why you're overwhelmed.
[00:10:48.17 - 00:10:53.14] You know, you couldn't create a day to do strategic thinking because you're doing
[00:10:53.14 - 00:10:56.18] your job plus a bit of all of theirs.
[00:10:57.09 - 00:11:02.03] And, you know, then people go, okay, yeah, you know, you're right, but.
[00:11:02.16 - 00:11:06.13] God, I'm so busy with the idea of recruiting three new senior people in my
[00:11:06.13 - 00:11:06.20] team.
[00:11:06.20 - 00:11:09.12] It's like, well, yeah, but it's not only going to get worse.
[00:11:10.02 - 00:11:16.20] And you're doing a disservice to the people who work for them because B players
[00:11:16.20 - 00:11:18.11] don't hire A players.
[00:11:18.11 - 00:11:26.16] And I think in my experience, any concern, any fear, any worry about losing or
[00:11:26.16 - 00:11:31.09] difficulty of getting people was there until we figured out how to turn hiring
[00:11:31.09 - 00:11:32.21] into a machine.
[00:11:33.13 - 00:11:38.07] Once we did, it was okay, this person is leaving, that's fine, we just press the
[00:11:38.07 - 00:11:40.03] button, we know what to do.
[00:11:40.03 - 00:11:42.07] And we just need to get better at it.
[00:11:42.18 - 00:11:45.16] That fear holds.
[00:11:46.00 - 00:11:55.03] When we do this productivity versus values grid, and who's an A?
[00:11:55.03 - 00:11:58.14] Well, they are the people we'd enthusiastically rehire, nines and tens
[00:11:58.14 - 00:11:59.22] out of 10.
[00:12:01.07 - 00:12:04.19] B pluses, so somebody who could be coached to an A, they're probably an eight.
[00:12:04.19 - 00:12:10.07] A B is a seven, one to six is a C, and then cultural non -performance.
[00:12:10.07 - 00:12:11.18] C's as well.
[00:12:12.13 - 00:12:19.17] Clients typically show up with about 10 to 35 % A and the vast majority of their
[00:12:19.17 - 00:12:22.01] employees are B's.
[00:12:22.05 - 00:12:28.00] And it's that, they are fearful, the line managers are fearful to try and replace
[00:12:28.00 - 00:12:28.09] somebody.
[00:12:28.09 - 00:12:32.11] They're not, they're a seven, so they're not awful all the time, otherwise they'd
[00:12:32.11 - 00:12:33.22] have already got rid of them.
[00:12:33.22 - 00:12:35.21] They hope they're going to get better.
[00:12:35.21 - 00:12:39.13] They have this sort of, because some days they turn up and they're okay.
[00:12:39.14 - 00:12:42.05] And they go, I just wish he was like that all the time.
[00:12:42.05 - 00:12:44.05] He's inconsistent.
[00:12:44.12 - 00:12:50.20] And they're like, but if I hire them, do I believe my organisation will replace, will
[00:12:50.20 - 00:12:54.23] we replace them with somebody who's an A and therefore I've got attitude but I
[00:12:54.23 - 00:12:56.15] don't have skill?
[00:12:56.15 - 00:13:00.07] Or do I think I'll just get somebody with the same level of attitude and no skill in
[00:13:00.07 - 00:13:01.16] which case I'm worse off?
[00:13:01.16 - 00:13:05.19] And it's that, they don't believe their hiring process will work.
[00:13:05.19 - 00:13:08.03] So they don't take any action.
[00:13:09.00 - 00:13:09.22] It’s awful.
[00:13:09.22 - 00:13:12.21] I think of that and the
[00:13:15.06 - 00:13:18.07] the pattern of seeing a challenge as an opportunity.
[00:13:18.07 - 00:13:24.10] So even if someone really good, like an A player, both culture and performance, if
[00:13:24.10 - 00:13:31.23] an A player works out, I have the belief now that we can find someone even better.
[00:13:31.23 - 00:13:33.16] So it's just an attitude.
[00:13:35.04 - 00:13:36.12] Oh, totally.
[00:13:36.20 - 00:13:43.13] I was working with two clients a few weeks ago and it was so interesting.
[00:13:43.13 - 00:13:51.13] One company has a professional HR function and they decided that they were gonna have
[00:13:51.13 - 00:13:55.04] T1, T2 and T3 as their performance things.
[00:13:55.04 - 00:13:58.14] And I just have this sneaky suspicion that they're gonna take current average and
[00:13:58.14 - 00:14:03.05] make it T2 and they're gonna say they're gonna lock in their sort of...
[00:14:03.05 - 00:14:04.08] mediocrity.
[00:14:04.08 - 00:14:10.04] The other client said, we believe that we could hire better people than our best
[00:14:10.04 - 00:14:10.21] people.
[00:14:10.21 - 00:14:14.09] So what we're going to do is we're going to say the top 5 % of our current talent
[00:14:14.09 - 00:14:21.07] is an A, the next 20 % is a B, and we're going to set the minimum bar for about 60
[00:14:21.07 - 00:14:26.12] % of current top performer, which puts two thirds of their organization at risk of
[00:14:26.12 - 00:14:28.13] being fired for non performance.
[00:14:28.13 - 00:14:30.16] And they say, well, we're going to go to market
[00:14:30.16 - 00:14:34.20] and the people we hire have to be better than our top, current top 5%.
[00:14:34.20 - 00:14:39.08] And it's like, that will transform this organisation and it's just attitudinal.
[00:14:39.08 - 00:14:42.14] But that's because they've hired some people recently who were better than their
[00:14:42.14 - 00:14:50.08] best people and they've had this paradigm shift and they're like, God, we've been
[00:14:50.08 - 00:14:54.01] hiring and training and promoting from within and actually there's this amazing
[00:14:54.01 - 00:14:58.15] pool of talented people out here who are better than our best people.
[00:15:00.03 - 00:15:02.07] So Dominic, back to you.
[00:15:03.22 - 00:15:11.17] In the pre -show we talked about this game of two truths and one lie which we talked
[00:15:11.17 - 00:15:14.06] about in some length.
[00:15:14.15 - 00:15:18.17] So what is two truths and one lie for you in no particular order?
[00:15:18.17 - 00:15:20.00] I hope you're ready.
[00:15:20.19 - 00:15:26.12] Okay, so I have a brother who's also called Dominic.
[00:15:28.12 - 00:15:39.16] I am part Nepalese and before I was a successful rugby player, I was a ballet
[00:15:39.16 - 00:15:40.12] dancer.
[00:15:40.12 - 00:15:48.00] Well, I know the answers, so I won't try to guess, but of course, I think they're
[00:15:48.00 - 00:15:50.23] all equally improbable.
[00:15:54.09 - 00:15:57.09] So which is the truth and which is the lie?
[00:15:57.23 - 00:16:03.03] I am part Nepalese and my brother is also called Dominic.
[00:16:03.18 - 00:16:09.19] So, you’re not a past ballet dancer.
[00:16:09.19 - 00:16:16.11] I was tempted to use that because I've had two guests on the show, both of whom, it
[00:16:16.11 - 00:16:19.17] came up in conversation that they were both ballet dancers and it was the most
[00:16:19.17 - 00:16:22.15] improbable thing that they could possibly have said to me.
[00:16:22.15 - 00:16:24.19] And it was true.
[00:16:24.19 - 00:16:26.16] It wasn't that I was doing Two Truths and a Lie with them.
[00:16:26.16 - 00:16:27.12] It just like,
[00:16:27.12 - 00:16:32.06] it came up in conversation and it was sort of, I was struck dumb momentarily when
[00:16:32.06 - 00:16:34.19] both of them said it to me.
[00:16:34.19 - 00:16:38.00] So I thought, right, I'll try and slip that through.
[00:16:38.13 - 00:16:44.05] And there's a bunch of questions I want to ask you having read your book, but before
[00:16:44.05 - 00:16:46.09] that, what led you to write the book?
[00:16:47.21 - 00:16:50.15] Mind Your F**king Business book.
[00:16:50.20 - 00:16:57.14] Yeah, so I wrote it after I'd been coaching for a number of years.
[00:16:57.14 - 00:17:02.21] And I thought there were some things that people kept saying to me as if the world
[00:17:02.21 - 00:17:05.09] was keeping it a secret from them.
[00:17:05.20 - 00:17:10.07] And so I'd started off with this working title, 10 Myths That Stop You Scaling Your
[00:17:10.07 - 00:17:11.12] Business.
[00:17:11.22 - 00:17:17.07] And then the title, because I'd written an earlier book called F**k Plan B, when it got
[00:17:17.07 - 00:17:19.21] to the publisher and we were picking a title
[00:17:19.21 - 00:17:23.08] the publisher said, well, you've already used the F word in your first book, so
[00:17:23.08 - 00:17:27.06] maybe it's a thing that you can own it.
[00:17:27.06 - 00:17:29.17] And so the title got changed.
[00:17:29.17 - 00:17:35.07] But that was sort of the genesis of it was what are these things that I think are
[00:17:35.07 - 00:17:36.08] true?
[00:17:36.19 - 00:17:42.15] And if you're, you know, for different people, one or more of them might be a
[00:17:42.15 - 00:17:43.18] myth that they hold.
[00:17:43.18 - 00:17:48.09] But the moment you feel that there's a belief that you hold that's not true, that
[00:17:48.09 - 00:17:49.20] could be challenged by
[00:17:49.20 - 00:17:54.06] by fact or information, it probably changes, the idea is I'm thinking it
[00:17:54.06 - 00:17:57.17] changes your mindset and you go, well, what else do I believe that's holding me
[00:17:57.17 - 00:17:58.14] back?
[00:17:58.14 - 00:18:03.15] Well, I mean, of course all you say, that's a load of rubbish and you fail to
[00:18:03.15 - 00:18:05.20] scale, but that's okay.
[00:18:05.20 - 00:18:07.15] I'm not trying to, you can't help everybody.
[00:18:07.15 - 00:18:10.01] You can only help the people who are open -minded.
[00:18:10.10 - 00:18:16.15] And in particular, in the sort of the tech startup space that I work in, or the tech
[00:18:16.15 - 00:18:18.07] scale up space I work in,
[00:18:18.07 - 00:18:24.06] many technology businesses are started by technology founders.
[00:18:24.17 - 00:18:30.06] And I find those guys in particular find sales and marketing challenging.
[00:18:30.16 - 00:18:33.21] And so this, when I say to people, you know you don't have to pay sales people
[00:18:33.21 - 00:18:35.02] commission.
[00:18:35.06 - 00:18:38.01] It's like, what do you mean?
[00:18:38.01 - 00:18:40.17] Like where has this information been hiding all my life?
[00:18:40.17 - 00:18:43.03] Why has nobody told me this before?
[00:18:43.11 - 00:18:45.04] Tell me more.
[00:18:45.04 - 00:18:46.23] And so, you know,
[00:18:47.01 - 00:18:50.04] If you're a salesperson, they just go, what a load of rubbish.
[00:18:50.14 - 00:18:56.10] But, you know, I had, I had Matt Dixon on the show who wrote Challenger Sale and The
[00:18:56.10 - 00:18:57.11] JOLT Effect.
[00:18:57.11 - 00:19:00.20] And I said, come on, Matt, you've been, you're a sales, you're, you know, you've
[00:19:00.20 - 00:19:02.07] been writing about sales books forever.
[00:19:02.07 - 00:19:08.09] You're, you know, probably the world's number one writer of quality sales books.
[00:19:08.13 - 00:19:12.16] Where is the evidence that says paying commission improves performance?
[00:19:12.16 - 00:19:13.22] And he said, Dom, you're right.
[00:19:13.22 - 00:19:15.01] There isn't any.
[00:19:15.01 - 00:19:16.13] All the evidence says,
[00:19:16.13 - 00:19:20.07] If you pay for something, people do less of it or perform worse.
[00:19:20.07 - 00:19:27.02] As long as it's cognitive, if it's piecework, if it's transactional, yes, you
[00:19:27.02 - 00:19:30.21] can pay people to do more, or you can pay people to be consistent or keep the pace
[00:19:30.21 - 00:19:31.11] up or something.
[00:19:31.11 - 00:19:38.03] But if it's cognitive, all the research says they'll do less of it or they'll do
[00:19:38.03 - 00:19:39.11] it less well.
[00:19:39.12 - 00:19:39.18] And...
[00:19:39.18 - 00:19:42.23] And therefore the idea of paying sales commission to people and Harvard Business
[00:19:42.23 - 00:19:47.00] Review did an article, I think in 2006, the anatomy of a high performing
[00:19:47.00 - 00:19:48.00] salesperson.
[00:19:48.00 - 00:19:51.18] And they said, look, 20 % of people in the world are greedy.
[00:19:51.18 - 00:19:55.20] And so 20 % of people in the world will show up and look like they're coin
[00:19:55.20 - 00:19:57.03] operated.
[00:19:57.03 - 00:20:01.07] And maybe more of those people end up in sales because it's coin operated.
[00:20:01.07 - 00:20:06.07] But only 20 % of the population are motivated by money.
[00:20:06.07 - 00:20:07.15] The other 80 % are not.
[00:20:07.15 - 00:20:08.15] And so,
[00:20:08.22 - 00:20:13.07] You know, if you've got a developer and you pay them per line of code, you know, I
[00:20:13.07 - 00:20:14.04] say to people, what would they do?
[00:20:14.04 - 00:20:19.05] They go, well, they'd write shorter lines of code or they'd put, you know, they'd
[00:20:19.05 - 00:20:21.15] start, they put lines of code in that don't do anything.
[00:20:21.15 - 00:20:22.06] And I, okay.
[00:20:22.06 - 00:20:27.10] So they would behave in a way that you wouldn't expect or you could probably
[00:20:27.10 - 00:20:29.21] expect, but you wouldn't be valuable.
[00:20:29.23 - 00:20:30.12] Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:30.12 - 00:20:34.06] And what about people in call centers if you paid them per call?
[00:20:34.11 - 00:20:36.08] Well, they say, well, we've heard that.
[00:20:36.08 - 00:20:38.06] You know, they hang up on customers.
[00:20:38.06 - 00:20:39.14] I said, okay.
[00:20:39.14 - 00:20:45.01] But you then believe salespeople are somehow different and you're spending all
[00:20:45.01 - 00:20:48.21] your life trying to manipulate, you know, the salespeople are manipulating the
[00:20:48.21 - 00:20:49.20] scheme.
[00:20:49.20 - 00:20:53.05] You're trying to work out a way that the scheme can't be manipulated.
[00:20:53.09 - 00:20:58.01] And in any event, you know, so often what I see is they, somebody says, right, we're
[00:20:58.01 - 00:20:59.22] going to hire a salesperson.
[00:21:00.03 - 00:21:03.19] You're going to hire a B player or C player or an A player?
[00:21:03.19 - 00:21:06.00] Okay, well, we want to hire an A player salesperson.
[00:21:06.00 - 00:21:07.01] Okay, so.
[00:21:07.01 - 00:21:11.15] A player salespeople, my definition of A player is the top 10 % of available talent
[00:21:11.15 - 00:21:14.04] for a given job in a given location at a given salary.
[00:21:14.04 - 00:21:18.23] So we want to hire 10 % of the available people who could come and work for you,
[00:21:18.23 - 00:21:19.10] yes.
[00:21:19.10 - 00:21:21.17] Do you think those people are unemployed?
[00:21:21.17 - 00:21:22.10] No.
[00:21:22.10 - 00:21:23.23] Okay, are they working for somebody else?
[00:21:23.23 - 00:21:24.07] Yes.
[00:21:24.07 - 00:21:25.04] Are they successful?
[00:21:25.04 - 00:21:25.18] Yes.
[00:21:25.18 - 00:21:26.20] Okay.
[00:21:26.22 - 00:21:32.05] You might have to pay them a guaranteed commission because if they leave a job
[00:21:32.05 - 00:21:34.13] where they're being successful, they're going to leave money on the table.
[00:21:34.13 - 00:21:37.22] They go, yeah, yeah, no, we would, we normally pay them a guarantee for the
[00:21:37.22 - 00:21:38.21] first year.
[00:21:38.21 - 00:21:42.20] I said, okay, so you're hiring salespeople and you're paying them a salary for the
[00:21:42.20 - 00:21:46.07] first year and you're only paying them commission in year two.
[00:21:46.07 - 00:21:49.06] Why don't you just not pay them commission in year two?
[00:21:49.06 - 00:21:50.23] Just carry on paying them a salary.
[00:21:50.23 - 00:21:55.00] Cause if they get to the end of the first year and they're any good, just keep them.
[00:21:55.00 - 00:21:56.15] And if they're not, fire them.
[00:21:56.15 - 00:21:58.06] What does the commission have to do with anything?
[00:21:58.06 - 00:22:02.12] And they go, yeah.
[00:22:02.12 - 00:22:04.02] Hadn't thought about it like that.
[00:22:04.05 - 00:22:06.08] And so they're already doing it.
[00:22:06.08 - 00:22:11.01] They're just, in their minds, they're just making it overly complicated.
[00:22:11.12 - 00:22:14.16] And, you know, the Harvard Business Review article said, look, the salespeople who
[00:22:14.16 - 00:22:18.08] aren't motivated by money are motivated by status and influence.
[00:22:18.15 - 00:22:21.12] And so that's how you could attract them from your competitor.
[00:22:21.12 - 00:22:25.09] You could say, we're going to help, you know, particularly if you're a, if you're
[00:22:25.09 - 00:22:29.11] a smaller company and you're trying to attract them from a larger competitor, you
[00:22:29.11 - 00:22:32.14] know, you can give them status and influence.
[00:22:32.17 - 00:22:35.18] because you probably don't want to pay them more, right?
[00:22:35.18 - 00:22:39.20] So you're then working with the data and not against it.
[00:22:39.20 - 00:22:40.11] So.
[00:22:41.00 - 00:22:43.11] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:43.11 - 00:22:51.07] You also talk about something else which is war for talent is a victim mindset,
[00:22:53.01 - 00:22:54.12] which is fascinating.
[00:22:56.16 - 00:23:02.05] So I think we tend to work with winners.
[00:23:03.17 - 00:23:10.16] And I think that McKinsey did some work looking at drug development in the pharma
[00:23:10.16 - 00:23:11.22] industry.
[00:23:13.14 - 00:23:18.23] Because there's a research that says, look, individuals who are performing in
[00:23:18.23 - 00:23:22.08] flow are 10 times more productive in sort of cognitive work or more.
[00:23:22.08 - 00:23:25.12] Google reckons their engineers are 350 times average.
[00:23:25.12 - 00:23:30.19] But McKinsey did some work looking at team performance in pharma and how quickly does
[00:23:30.19 - 00:23:33.13] a pharma drug development team get their drugs to market.
[00:23:33.13 - 00:23:37.17] 85 % of the teams thought they were above average.
[00:23:38.05 - 00:23:40.19] The top 1 % were 10x average.
[00:23:40.19 - 00:23:44.02] They got a drug to market 500 days quicker.
[00:23:44.19 - 00:23:45.00] Right?
[00:23:45.00 - 00:23:49.21] And so I just think, you know, that's a high performing team.
[00:23:49.21 - 00:23:53.21] So you've got as a manager, as a leader, your goal,
[00:23:54.08 - 00:23:58.01] one of your goals is to build the best team that you can afford.
[00:23:58.13 - 00:24:02.01] And you've got to try and work out.
[00:24:02.18 - 00:24:10.00] So when people say, I can't attract any talent, it's like, it's not the talent's
[00:24:10.00 - 00:24:10.05] fault.
[00:24:10.05 - 00:24:14.16] Like just because you have a job, a job of just because you have a vacancy, there is
[00:24:14.16 - 00:24:19.11] no God given right for amazing people to show up your door and apply for it.
[00:24:19.11 - 00:24:22.14] It's like, just because you make widgets doesn't mean somebody's going to come and
[00:24:22.14 - 00:24:23.18] buy your widgets.
[00:24:23.18 - 00:24:26.07] You have to do something about it, right?
[00:24:26.07 - 00:24:30.14] Are you a shit place to work or are you amazing place to work?
[00:24:30.14 - 00:24:36.19] I had John Readman on the show the other day and he's got an AI startup and they're
[00:24:36.19 - 00:24:39.00] based up in Leeds in Yorkshire.
[00:24:39.00 - 00:24:40.16] So they're not in London, right?
[00:24:40.16 - 00:24:42.15] So that should play against them.
[00:24:42.15 - 00:24:49.18] But he's just had a job that he's just filled for a data scientist, which, it's a
[00:24:49.18 - 00:24:52.06] talented individual
[00:24:52.12 - 00:24:55.04] for a role which is in very high demand.
[00:24:55.04 - 00:24:58.18] So, you know, for his organization, it should be quite hard for him to fill that
[00:24:58.18 - 00:24:58.21] role.
[00:24:58.21 - 00:25:03.16] He had 35 CVs, amazing CVs, he said, and he was amazing.
[00:25:03.16 - 00:25:05.10] He could hire an amazing person.
[00:25:05.10 - 00:25:07.21] They do a four day week.
[00:25:08.22 - 00:25:13.08] So, right, so they've decided that a four day week is the way in which they can
[00:25:13.08 - 00:25:14.09] compete.
[00:25:14.16 - 00:25:19.00] And so you have to design your business or your culture or a combination of, you
[00:25:19.00 - 00:25:21.02] know, org structure and design and...
[00:25:21.02 - 00:25:24.18] pay and reward, you know, all of that's what is our employer proposition?
[00:25:24.19 - 00:25:30.03] And you have to then take it to market to beat your competitors for a rare talent.
[00:25:30.03 - 00:25:33.03] And if you don't do that, you won't win.
[00:25:33.06 - 00:25:37.02] But then to say, it's a war on talent, it's really difficult.
[00:25:37.02 - 00:25:41.16] It's like, no, it's just like your company just are shit at attracting talented
[00:25:41.16 - 00:25:42.02] people.
[00:25:42.02 - 00:25:44.08] Nobody wants to come and work for you.
[00:25:44.08 - 00:25:47.12] And then you look at their job ad and it's boring as shit.
[00:25:47.12 - 00:25:50.21] It's like, you know, it's just, you know, people's job ads are...
[00:25:50.21 - 00:25:52.09] You know, we're an amazing company.
[00:25:52.09 - 00:25:54.11] You need to be a nuclear physicist to work here.
[00:25:54.11 - 00:25:55.21] This job is for a receptionist.
[00:25:55.21 - 00:25:57.21] You need eight years experience in an MBA.
[00:25:57.21 - 00:26:02.15] And it's like, and nobody applies or, you know, it's just dull, you know, or in the
[00:26:02.15 - 00:26:07.07] UK, you know, you get 28 days holiday, I think is, is the statutory minimum.
[00:26:07.07 - 00:26:09.00] So it says benefits, 28 days holiday.
[00:26:09.00 - 00:26:10.17] It's like, that's not a benefit.
[00:26:10.17 - 00:26:13.10] That's a statutory requirement.
[00:26:13.12 - 00:26:13.18] Right.
[00:26:13.18 - 00:26:17.08] So what do you get that the government hasn't mandated you to pay me?
[00:26:17.08 - 00:26:18.20] Like, you know, what else
[00:26:18.20 - 00:26:19.15] could this be?
[00:26:19.15 - 00:26:21.15] What else could this company be offering?
[00:26:21.15 - 00:26:25.11] And I think, you know, it could be something about development.
[00:26:25.11 - 00:26:29.15] It could be, I don't know, whatever.
[00:26:29.15 - 00:26:33.16] Just, you know, look at your competitors and say, how do we create some
[00:26:33.16 - 00:26:36.18] differentiation so that we're a better place to work than they are?
[00:26:36.18 - 00:26:39.16] And then we might beat them.
[00:26:40.16 - 00:26:43.13] So I just feel...
[00:26:43.13 - 00:26:46.09] And often people say, what, you don't understand Dom, it's really difficult.
[00:26:46.09 - 00:26:50.02] So I say, look, let me tell you one story from my own background.
[00:26:50.05 - 00:26:56.14] I was running a company and we had 120 people and the lease was up on the
[00:26:56.14 - 00:26:57.13] building.
[00:26:57.13 - 00:27:00.20] And I said to the board, I'm gonna make everybody redundant and we're gonna
[00:27:00.20 - 00:27:01.17] relocate the business.
[00:27:01.17 - 00:27:05.05] I would rather have fewer people with the right attitude than the team I had
[00:27:05.05 - 00:27:06.05] inherited.
[00:27:06.06 - 00:27:10.09] But the board procrastinated on the decision.
[00:27:10.09 - 00:27:14.04] And so in the end, I had four weeks to find 99 people.
[00:27:14.12 - 00:27:18.07] So in the first week of that four week period, we put 8 ,000 people through
[00:27:18.07 - 00:27:21.21] assessment centers in a week and we hired 99 people, right?
[00:27:21.21 - 00:27:27.00] So it's just, it can't be done if your life depends on it.
[00:27:27.00 - 00:27:29.02] And in that case, our lives depended on it.
[00:27:29.02 - 00:27:34.06] And so we went out and we found a company that opened supermarkets in the UK and
[00:27:34.06 - 00:27:39.08] they built us a game and then they went round and they said, okay, we're gonna
[00:27:39.08 - 00:27:39.23] have,
[00:27:39.23 - 00:27:43.20] We're going to have eight locations, hotel locations, which are sort of around in a
[00:27:43.20 - 00:27:45.11] circle from your new office.
[00:27:45.11 - 00:27:48.10] And we're going to go and we're going to blitz local radio.
[00:27:48.10 - 00:27:49.21] We're going to put up billboards.
[00:27:49.21 - 00:27:52.01] We're going to be giving out balloons in shopping centers.
[00:27:52.01 - 00:27:55.19] So we're going to attract the wives, the girlfriends, the mothers, the aunties, the
[00:27:55.19 - 00:27:59.14] uncles of people who might potentially come and work for you.
[00:27:59.14 - 00:28:03.05] So we're going to capture all of that demand and attention during the day.
[00:28:03.05 - 00:28:06.04] They're going to go home and they're going to speak to their partner who's been at
[00:28:06.04 - 00:28:06.22] work.
[00:28:07.04 - 00:28:09.22] And they're gonna say, there's an assessment center in this hotel, you just
[00:28:09.22 - 00:28:11.18] need to show up with your CV.
[00:28:11.18 - 00:28:14.15] And so each night we got about a thousand people that turned up at the assessment
[00:28:14.15 - 00:28:15.10] centers.
[00:28:15.10 - 00:28:18.17] They would have a look at the CV, some of them would just get said, no, the ones we
[00:28:18.17 - 00:28:23.04] thought looked like they might work for us, we got them to start playing the game.
[00:28:23.16 - 00:28:28.13] Some of those people then got a second interview, a week later we had 99 people.
[00:28:28.13 - 00:28:32.18] And it's just, it's possible, but if you just say, the war on talent, it's just
[00:28:32.18 - 00:28:34.18] that, that's why I think it just victim mindset.
[00:28:34.18 - 00:28:35.14] It's like.
[00:28:35.23 - 00:28:37.21] Just giving up, you're not even trying.
[00:28:37.21 - 00:28:42.10] You think the outside, the world is against you and it's not.
[00:28:42.14 - 00:28:44.23] You're not, you just need to fight back.
[00:28:45.11 - 00:28:52.16] So I'm hearing purpose over just getting someone, just getting a job description
[00:28:52.16 - 00:28:54.15] out and expecting people to apply.
[00:28:54.15 - 00:28:56.12] So provide purpose.
[00:28:56.20 - 00:29:00.11] The second one is have a really good hiring process.
[00:29:00.11 - 00:29:06.14] And that reminds me of a few years ago, I was going to the Mobile World Congress in
[00:29:06.14 - 00:29:13.09] Barcelona and that was, I don't know, around 2010 -ish,
[00:29:13.22 - 00:29:18.12] when Amazon was starting to hire mobile developers.
[00:29:19.12 - 00:29:24.04] And of course, this was the place to find mobile developers in the Mobile Congress.
[00:29:24.07 - 00:29:29.18] And so they had hired a hotel next door, they booked out the entire hotel, and they
[00:29:29.18 - 00:29:31.23] had interviewers at each level.
[00:29:32.04 - 00:29:36.19] Their people went around to the Mobile World Congress, handing out business
[00:29:36.19 - 00:29:38.20] cards, you know, want to join Amazon.
[00:29:38.20 - 00:29:41.15] Of course, that was early days of Amazon, right?
[00:29:43.00 - 00:29:49.10] You know, go there and within a day you would go through the entire hiring process
[00:29:49.10 - 00:29:52.00] and at the end of the day you'd have a yes or no.
[00:29:52.05 - 00:29:56.02] So they had a super efficient hiring process.
[00:29:57.05 - 00:30:02.12] And you know, Amazon is the place that's known for getting people burned out.
[00:30:02.13 - 00:30:06.22] And it's because they have an amazing hiring process that they're able to scale
[00:30:06.22 - 00:30:08.00] as they are.
[00:30:08.09 - 00:30:09.08] Yes.
[00:30:09.08 - 00:30:12.03] Well, you see, I think the job ad does one thing.
[00:30:12.03 - 00:30:17.10] It's somebody and again, I'm thinking about designing a process to attract A
[00:30:17.10 - 00:30:18.20] players, right?
[00:30:18.20 - 00:30:22.19] Not the unemployed or the recently redundant, right?
[00:30:22.19 - 00:30:26.05] That's always going to be easy because they're after a job.
[00:30:26.05 - 00:30:31.19] But to attract somebody who's not actively looking, my scenario is this.
[00:30:31.19 - 00:30:35.15] They're sitting down with their, they're watching TV on Sunday night.
[00:30:35.15 - 00:30:38.01] They've got a glass of wine or a beer in their hand,
[00:30:38.01 - 00:30:45.06] and then it occurs to them, tomorrow is Monday, and they go, Monday, back to work.
[00:30:45.06 - 00:30:50.01] And they flick open their laptop or they jump on their phone and they go, I wonder
[00:30:50.01 - 00:30:55.14] if there's anything, I wonder if anyone's advertising a job that I like the look of
[00:30:55.14 - 00:30:59.07] more than the idea of going to work on Monday.
[00:30:59.07 - 00:31:03.15] And your job ad just needs to capture those people on a Sunday night who are in
[00:31:03.15 - 00:31:05.04] that mood, who are
[00:31:05.04 - 00:31:08.17] good people in their company that their company doesn't want to lose, can't afford
[00:31:08.17 - 00:31:11.16] to lose, but will be an amazing hire for you.
[00:31:11.16 - 00:31:15.08] And then you need to get them through your recruitment process in the next week,
[00:31:15.08 - 00:31:18.11] because they're going to apply on Sunday night and you want to have hired them by
[00:31:18.11 - 00:31:23.01] Friday, so that not three weeks or four weeks later, because then their companies,
[00:31:23.01 - 00:31:25.06] they're having a better day, they're having a better week.
[00:31:25.06 - 00:31:30.01] That moment of stress on the Friday that pissed them off, their interaction with
[00:31:30.01 - 00:31:35.03] their boss on Friday that made them open to an offer has gone away.
[00:31:35.11 - 00:31:39.09] And then they just, they stop, they ghost the HR team, they don't turn up for an
[00:31:39.09 - 00:31:43.03] appointment, they get counter offered.
[00:31:43.03 - 00:31:46.21] One of our clients in the Philippines, it's got about 500 staff in the
[00:31:46.21 - 00:31:51.10] Philippines, we identified that as their bottleneck.
[00:31:51.10 - 00:31:55.04] And so they were hiring at 40 days, they got it down to 20, they got it down to 10,
[00:31:55.04 - 00:31:58.00] and at the minute their goal is to get it down to four.
[00:31:59.00 - 00:32:03.06] And they now, what they've done is they've actually moved away from advertising in
[00:32:03.06 - 00:32:04.05] the last
[00:32:04.06 - 00:32:07.17] six months, what they do now is they now do careers fairs.
[00:32:07.17 - 00:32:12.10] Right, so for them, their next best employee is the best employee for another
[00:32:12.10 - 00:32:14.11] company that does what they do.
[00:32:14.12 - 00:32:16.21] But they wouldn't, and they're not gonna move for more money.
[00:32:16.21 - 00:32:21.03] They do pay about 125 % of market, because they do have to be paying at the
[00:32:21.03 - 00:32:22.13] absolutely top of the market.
[00:32:22.13 - 00:32:27.22] But those people will move because of career and development opportunities.
[00:32:27.22 - 00:32:32.23] So they have a career fair where they can meet, these people are really coming to
[00:32:32.23 - 00:32:33.21] shop you.
[00:32:33.21 - 00:32:38.12] The Careers Fair allows them to come and meet the current employees and to see
[00:32:38.12 - 00:32:42.04] whether the stories those employees tell them sound like this is a journey that
[00:32:42.04 - 00:32:43.12] they want to go on.
[00:32:43.12 - 00:32:51.23] And then that has been remarkably successful for them as a way of attracting
[00:32:51.23 - 00:32:53.20] top talent from competitors.
[00:32:55.02 - 00:33:01.20] Something else you talk about in your book is annual performance appraisals being 12
[00:33:01.20 - 00:33:06.23] months of avoiding to have difficult conversations, which just summarizes it so
[00:33:06.23 - 00:33:07.16] well.
[00:33:09.12 - 00:33:14.19] I thought it had gone away.
[00:33:14.19 - 00:33:20.08] I think I talk about, I think I mentioned this in, if I don't mention it there, I
[00:33:20.08 - 00:33:23.15] mention it in one of the blogs I've written about this, but good friend of
[00:33:23.15 - 00:33:27.12] mine, God, I've got to be careful how much I say to make sure that it's not
[00:33:27.12 - 00:33:28.12] identifiable.
[00:33:28.12 - 00:33:34.03] But I doubt his boss would be listening to this because his boss is definitely old
[00:33:34.03 - 00:33:34.22] school.
[00:33:34.22 - 00:33:38.16] But this is a senior person in a financial services,
[00:33:38.16 - 00:33:42.10] company in the UK and I had breakfast with him and said, you seem a bit miserable.
[00:33:42.10 - 00:33:44.20] And he said, I've just had my annual performance review.
[00:33:44.20 - 00:33:48.05] Like this company headhunted him from a competitor, right?
[00:33:48.05 - 00:33:52.01] And he just sits down with his boss at the end of his first 12 months and his boss
[00:33:52.01 - 00:33:53.12] basically says, you're rubbish.
[00:33:53.12 - 00:33:55.15] You didn't do any of the objectives.
[00:33:55.15 - 00:33:56.16] And he's like.
[00:33:59.00 - 00:34:00.14] What did you tell me now?
[00:34:00.14 - 00:34:02.06] You could have told me earlier.
[00:34:02.09 - 00:34:02.19] Right.
[00:34:02.19 - 00:34:05.03] And in his mind, he'd done them all.
[00:34:05.03 - 00:34:07.20] He's like, and I said, well, what are you going to do?
[00:34:07.20 - 00:34:10.19] He said, well, he said, I've got another set of objectives for this year.
[00:34:10.19 - 00:34:12.14] And frankly, they're as badly written as last year.
[00:34:12.14 - 00:34:17.13] So we might get to the end of next year and I might fail again.
[00:34:17.13 - 00:34:20.19] And it's just, you just go, it's just so prevalent.
[00:34:21.04 - 00:34:23.05] You know, people don't want to say anything.
[00:34:23.05 - 00:34:24.18] They don't want to have a conversation.
[00:34:24.18 - 00:34:25.15] They're just...
[00:34:25.16 - 00:34:29.01] just want to rub along, but also quite British not to, you know, to avoid
[00:34:29.01 - 00:34:29.20] difficult conversations.
[00:34:29.20 - 00:34:35.01] Certainly, you know, you get into Holland and Eastern Europe and it becomes much,
[00:34:35.01 - 00:34:37.10] much more direct.
[00:34:37.22 - 00:34:43.21] And so, you know, and I was chatting to, I had Jim Harter on, who's the
[00:34:43.21 - 00:34:45.20] chief scientist at Gallup.
[00:34:45.20 - 00:34:52.05] And he said, you know, the 80 -20 rule applies, like 85 % of employee engagement
[00:34:52.05 - 00:34:55.00] performance is driven by their relationship with their day -to -day
[00:34:55.00 - 00:34:55.21] manager.
[00:34:56.07 - 00:35:01.18] And he said, if that manager wants to sort of hack, you know, how they maximize their
[00:35:01.18 - 00:35:05.22] impact, he said, you know, the 80 -20 rule is like, they should have a 10 to 15
[00:35:05.22 - 00:35:08.17] minute check -in every week with every employee.
[00:35:08.17 - 00:35:12.13] And in that meeting, they should just aim to do one thing, which is to praise the
[00:35:12.13 - 00:35:14.05] employee for a job well done.
[00:35:14.08 - 00:35:19.21] And he said, but that presupposes that the employee and the manager have, cause
[00:35:19.21 - 00:35:24.15] Gallup have this Q12 measure of employee engagement and the Q, the Q1, question
[00:35:24.15 - 00:35:25.06] one, it's a pyramid.
[00:35:25.06 - 00:35:26.06] Question one is,
[00:35:26.06 - 00:35:28.06] I know what's expected of me at work.
[00:35:28.06 - 00:35:33.14] And so you have to have expectations set and you have to be able to measure it.
[00:35:33.14 - 00:35:37.21] And so you can't praise for a job well done if you don't know what the
[00:35:37.21 - 00:35:38.13] expectations are.
[00:35:38.13 - 00:35:43.09] On Gallup record, only about 35 % of employees, certainly in the US, have
[00:35:43.09 - 00:35:45.20] expectations clearly defined.
[00:35:45.20 - 00:35:48.13] So you can't, if you don't have that, you can't do any of that.
[00:35:48.13 - 00:35:52.05] And you can't also have a difficult conversation because nobody knows what
[00:35:52.05 - 00:35:54.18] they were supposed to be doing and therefore nobody knows whether they
[00:35:54.18 - 00:35:55.18] were winning or losing.
[00:35:55.18 - 00:36:00.04] And so then the HR says, once a year, you've got to tell people how they did.
[00:36:00.04 - 00:36:03.00] So the managers hate it, the employees hate it.
[00:36:03.04 - 00:36:05.17] It's just, just awful.
[00:36:06.02 - 00:36:11.17] Yeah, like you were telling me earlier, most leaders haven't had formal leadership
[00:36:11.17 - 00:36:12.17] training.
[00:36:13.07 - 00:36:19.05] And if you have formal leadership training, hopefully you'll get told how to
[00:36:19.05 - 00:36:22.14] deal with difficult conversations and that you can deal with them with love and not
[00:36:22.14 - 00:36:23.15] fear.
[00:36:24.04 - 00:36:33.00] You know, and approach it with facts, not stories and feelings, not like insults
[00:36:33.00 - 00:36:34.04] or...
[00:36:35.08 - 00:36:36.13] attacks?
[00:36:37.03 - 00:36:41.16] Well, yeah, it's just, yeah, I'm going to have to tell them they're not doing very
[00:36:41.16 - 00:36:42.17] well.
[00:36:42.17 - 00:36:46.21] Just, you know, makes you stressful thinking about it in that context.
[00:36:46.23 - 00:36:49.14] And you say, OK, well, that's because you're thinking about that
[00:36:49.14 - 00:36:53.08] that's your job as a manager is to tell people that they're not doing very well.
[00:36:53.08 - 00:36:55.06] So much better
[00:36:55.06 - 00:36:59.13] you know, if you've if you can say if you've trained children and dogs, if you
[00:36:59.13 - 00:37:05.15] parented children and you've tried to train dogs, you can't beat them into
[00:37:05.15 - 00:37:11.15] good performance, you have to praise them for the behavior that you want, reinforce
[00:37:11.15 - 00:37:15.06] the behavior you want with praise and snacks, both dogs and children respond
[00:37:15.06 - 00:37:16.19] well to that.
[00:37:17.18 - 00:37:19.10] And employees, it's the same.
[00:37:19.10 - 00:37:22.10] And so, you know, if you can do that weekly praise thing, that's great.
[00:37:22.10 - 00:37:25.00] So you reinforce the positive behavior.
[00:37:25.03 - 00:37:28.22] But also it's getting away from being a manager and being a coach.
[00:37:28.22 - 00:37:33.15] So if the employee knows the expectation, and then in your weekly check -in, the
[00:37:33.15 - 00:37:35.04] employee turns up and says,
[00:37:35.08 - 00:37:41.06] I failed to live up to my expectation or the company's expectation of me.
[00:37:41.06 - 00:37:44.13] And you say, do you know how to, you know, what would you, what are you going to do
[00:37:44.13 - 00:37:45.07] differently next week?
[00:37:45.07 - 00:37:47.12] You're a coach, not a manager.
[00:37:47.13 - 00:37:49.04] And then, and then it's helpful.
[00:37:49.04 - 00:37:51.19] It's not, there's no stress involved.
[00:37:51.19 - 00:37:55.03] It's just that I'm going to have to tell Freddie's not very good.
[00:37:55.03 - 00:37:57.09] It's like, it's just awful.
[00:37:57.09 - 00:37:58.17] So like, just get rid of it.
[00:37:58.17 - 00:38:02.02] Don't, you know, you can avoid that conversation ever coming up.
[00:38:02.19 - 00:38:10.01] A good question for that is, on a scale of 1 to 10, the work that you delivered, how
[00:38:10.01 - 00:38:11.10] does it score?
[00:38:11.21 - 00:38:17.11] And if that person is realistic and they haven't done a good job, they will answer
[00:38:17.11 - 00:38:19.01] the questions themselves.
[00:38:20.16 - 00:38:25.21] Now, if they're not realistic, then it's a question of setting expectations.
[00:38:25.21 - 00:38:28.18] And what do we expect from this deliverable?
[00:38:28.18 - 00:38:31.17] Now I'm expecting this, you're expecting this.
[00:38:31.17 - 00:38:32.20] How do we align?
[00:38:32.20 - 00:38:34.13] And it's a conversation.
[00:38:34.16 - 00:38:37.08] Totally.
[00:38:37.08 - 00:38:41.19] You say to people, look, if you've got no data, you say to people, how do you think
[00:38:41.19 - 00:38:42.13] you did last week?
[00:38:42.13 - 00:38:44.23] Like last week, were you an A, B or a C?
[00:38:45.09 - 00:38:48.17] And sometimes people actually always do themselves down and you go, you're saying
[00:38:48.17 - 00:38:51.06] you're a B, actually, I think you're an A, look, we should recalibrate.
[00:38:51.06 - 00:38:53.08] And that's quite a positive conversation.
[00:38:53.08 - 00:38:56.20] But again, it's about what our expectations and how are we measuring them
[00:38:56.20 - 00:38:59.08] and do we have data and is data readily available?
[00:38:59.08 - 00:39:01.21] But that's just a coaching conversation.
[00:39:02.14 - 00:39:03.10] Where are you stuck?
[00:39:03.10 - 00:39:04.10] How can I help you?
[00:39:04.10 - 00:39:07.21] What would you have had to have done to have been an A last week rather than have
[00:39:07.21 - 00:39:08.18] been a B?
[00:39:08.18 - 00:39:14.05] It's all about you in service of the employee rather than beating them over the
[00:39:14.05 - 00:39:15.06] head.
[00:39:15.23 - 00:39:24.09] But again, because people have never worked for anybody who's coached them,
[00:39:24.09 - 00:39:28.02] they've only worked for crappy managers.
[00:39:28.05 - 00:39:31.19] And so it's like children who've had crappy parents
[00:39:31.23 - 00:39:33.16] are crappy parents, right?
[00:39:33.16 - 00:39:35.22] Because it's not because they're just not thinking about it.
[00:39:35.22 - 00:39:37.10] They're just reproducing...
[00:39:37.10 - 00:39:40.18] There's a, see the conversation you wish you'd had with your parents
[00:39:40.18 - 00:39:45.16] it's like really your parenting is probably that of your grandparents unless
[00:39:45.16 - 00:39:47.09] you do something about it.
[00:39:49.11 - 00:39:56.04] Which reminds me of the Peter principle and that, you know, people are elevated to
[00:39:56.04 - 00:40:01.15] their position of incompetency or promoted to the point where they become incompetent
[00:40:01.15 - 00:40:02.21] for the job.
[00:40:03.07 - 00:40:08.12] And in your book you say, you don't do the work because you get the job title, you
[00:40:08.12 - 00:40:11.00] get the job and the title if you do the work.
[00:40:11.00 - 00:40:17.12] And you have this brilliant formula for how to avoid that, how to get people...
[00:40:18.09 - 00:40:22.04] to see if the job fits for them before they actually get to do it or formally get
[00:40:22.04 - 00:40:22.20] to do it.
[00:40:22.20 - 00:40:26.14] Yeah, I just, and this is just because it's so sad.
[00:40:26.14 - 00:40:29.09] It's all, it's sort of personal misery, if you like.
[00:40:29.09 - 00:40:32.08] How could I avoid my own and their misery in the future?
[00:40:32.08 - 00:40:35.18] And, you know, I just looked at what we had done in the past and we said, you
[00:40:35.18 - 00:40:39.15] know, we've got this development team and James is an amazing developer.
[00:40:39.15 - 00:40:41.12] James looks like he might be the right manager.
[00:40:41.12 - 00:40:43.12] So we make James the manager.
[00:40:43.13 - 00:40:46.10] And then James is a terrible manager, right?
[00:40:46.10 - 00:40:47.03] He hates it.
[00:40:47.03 - 00:40:49.15] The team hates him, but we've promoted him.
[00:40:49.15 - 00:40:50.17] We've made it.
[00:40:50.17 - 00:40:51.03] We've...
[00:40:51.03 - 00:40:54.21] We've made a big song and dance about it, then he fails and so then we have to let
[00:40:54.21 - 00:40:55.18] him go.
[00:40:55.18 - 00:41:00.02] And it's like, but James was a really good member of the team and we did it to him.
[00:41:00.02 - 00:41:02.10] We promoted him and we let him accept the role.
[00:41:02.10 - 00:41:06.09] And so you go, well, what if he tried out for it?
[00:41:06.09 - 00:41:10.12] What if he was, what if we just sort of said, look, James, could you step up and
[00:41:10.12 - 00:41:12.01] do the management job for a bit?
[00:41:12.01 - 00:41:14.10] See if you like it.
[00:41:14.16 - 00:41:15.13] You know.
[00:41:15.13 - 00:41:19.16] Let's have a look at it, let's just do it, could you do it temporarily for me for 90
[00:41:19.16 - 00:41:20.05] days?
[00:41:20.05 - 00:41:21.17] See how it fits.
[00:41:21.17 - 00:41:25.21] We're not gonna give you a new job title, we're not gonna give you any more money.
[00:41:26.07 - 00:41:30.07] We're just gonna see whether you enjoy it more and whether we think you're good at
[00:41:30.07 - 00:41:33.13] it and whether the team enjoy being managed by you or coached by you.
[00:41:33.13 - 00:41:39.03] And then that's great, people say yes or no, but they don't take the job and they
[00:41:39.03 - 00:41:43.14] don't have an ego hit if it doesn't work, because it was temporary at the beginning,
[00:41:43.14 - 00:41:45.10] so it had an end date.
[00:41:45.10 - 00:41:49.03] And then I think you then we sort of said, well, how else could we find these people
[00:41:49.03 - 00:41:52.04] who, how could we develop these skills?
[00:41:52.04 - 00:42:00.02] Because really there are some people who manage to be leaders without authority.
[00:42:00.12 - 00:42:01.14] And that's what you're after.
[00:42:01.14 - 00:42:07.02] You're after people who seem to get joy out of leading or coaching or managing
[00:42:07.02 - 00:42:08.08] without getting paid.
[00:42:08.08 - 00:42:10.07] There's sort of a natural ability.
[00:42:10.10 - 00:42:12.23] So we sort of said, well, let's try and create some of these things.
[00:42:12.23 - 00:42:15.12] So we said, well, we've got a charity committee.
[00:42:15.12 - 00:42:18.19] Okay, we want somebody to volunteer to run the charity committee and have a team of
[00:42:18.19 - 00:42:21.09] people underneath them and they're gonna run all the charity events.
[00:42:21.09 - 00:42:22.17] You're not gonna get paid for that.
[00:42:22.17 - 00:42:26.01] We're gonna have somebody run our sort of culture events, you know, organize the
[00:42:26.01 - 00:42:27.09] Christmas party.
[00:42:27.09 - 00:42:28.16] Somebody's gonna run that team.
[00:42:28.16 - 00:42:32.04] Somebody's gonna run a sort of a organize the weekly drinks after work on a
[00:42:32.04 - 00:42:32.19] Thursday.
[00:42:32.19 - 00:42:34.15] Who wants to volunteer to do that?
[00:42:34.15 - 00:42:37.20] And people will put their hands up and say, I'll do that.
[00:42:37.20 - 00:42:44.23] And you go, okay, well, you've got some, this thing leading gives you some joy
[00:42:44.23 - 00:42:46.23] because we're not paying you to do it.
[00:42:46.23 - 00:42:54.01] Maybe it gives you status and influence, but if you do a good job, then we can see
[00:42:54.01 - 00:42:58.01] that maybe we should put you on some more formal training and see how we can get you
[00:42:58.01 - 00:42:58.19] a role.
[00:42:58.19 - 00:43:03.11] But it means that we've got a clear pool of people in the organisation who we know
[00:43:03.11 - 00:43:07.21] we could ask to do a project or we could promote them.
[00:43:08.16 - 00:43:14.23] And so often, I've had people who've said, you know,
[00:43:14.23 - 00:43:17.16] why, I would, I'd love to be sales manager.
[00:43:17.16 - 00:43:21.08] And I can't be, you haven't come in early and coached anybody.
[00:43:21.08 - 00:43:25.20] You know, you haven't taken the time to listen to the calls of any of the new
[00:43:25.20 - 00:43:27.17] salespeople at all ever.
[00:43:27.17 - 00:43:32.04] In fact, I would say, you know, on a scale of one to 10, if 10 was very selfish and
[00:43:32.04 - 00:43:33.15] one wasn't, you're 10.
[00:43:33.15 - 00:43:37.00] You know, you're perfect to be a salesperson and terrible to be a sales
[00:43:37.00 - 00:43:37.20] manager.
[00:43:37.20 - 00:43:39.12] Yeah, but I want to be promoted.
[00:43:39.12 - 00:43:40.14] Well, we need,
[00:43:40.14 - 00:43:42.01] we need a different track for you.
[00:43:42.01 - 00:43:45.12] We need to be able to promote you without you having to go into management.
[00:43:45.12 - 00:43:51.13] And one of our clients, Pax8 has got CAMs, Client Account Managers.
[00:43:51.20 - 00:43:54.13] And I think they've just created level nine.
[00:43:54.13 - 00:43:58.12] So they'd gone to eight, but they needed to promote some people, so they've created
[00:43:58.12 - 00:43:59.06] level nine.
[00:43:59.06 - 00:44:02.13] And you've got this track, which is, you know, sales development track, which is
[00:44:02.13 - 00:44:05.23] nothing whatsoever to do with becoming a manager.
[00:44:05.23 - 00:44:06.16] And it's just...
[00:44:06.16 - 00:44:09.07] So an individual contributor and a team leader track.
[00:44:09.07 - 00:44:11.05] Yeah. Just have those two things
[00:44:11.05 - 00:44:17.01] and so, don't make it so that the only way to get more status or more influence
[00:44:17.01 - 00:44:19.07] or more money is to become a manager.
[00:44:19.07 - 00:44:24.12] In fact, make that so it's almost less appealing so that the greats, the sole
[00:44:24.12 - 00:44:27.19] contributors stay in their sole contributor role where frankly, they're
[00:44:27.19 - 00:44:31.12] earning you a fortune and they're doing amazing work.
[00:44:31.12 - 00:44:36.03] And then, because sometimes it's not the best sales people who make the best sales
[00:44:36.03 - 00:44:37.10] managers, right?
[00:44:37.10 - 00:44:39.14] You know, there's some great,
[00:44:40.06 - 00:44:45.16] Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, I think he talks about backhand, a backhand shot in tennis.
[00:44:45.16 - 00:44:47.23] And they ask people, how do you do that?
[00:44:47.23 - 00:44:50.16] Like to explain how you play a backhand lob.
[00:44:50.16 - 00:44:53.10] People explain it and then when they look on the video, the thing that they've
[00:44:53.10 - 00:44:57.07] explained in the video like are bare no relation, like they are not describing it,
[00:44:57.07 - 00:45:00.02] they cannot coach you, they just have innate talent.
[00:45:00.05 - 00:45:04.03] And so then there are other people who've had to work at it and they know what they
[00:45:04.03 - 00:45:07.09] were doing and not what they now need to do and they could coach other people to
[00:45:07.09 - 00:45:08.17] also make that change.
[00:45:08.17 - 00:45:11.16] They're not the best people.
[00:45:11.16 - 00:45:12.23] Matt Dixon said that to me.
[00:45:12.23 - 00:45:16.19] He said, you probably don't coach your top 20 % of people, salespeople, because
[00:45:16.19 - 00:45:18.02] they're just innately good at it.
[00:45:18.02 - 00:45:19.07] And they don't know why they're good.
[00:45:19.07 - 00:45:20.11] They're just good.
[00:45:20.11 - 00:45:23.22] You want to coach the people in the middle who could be better.
[00:45:23.22 - 00:45:26.13] And that's where you sort of invest your time and effort.
[00:45:26.13 - 00:45:30.14] And so take somebody out the middle, make them a coach, make them a manager.
[00:45:30.18 - 00:45:31.22] They've had to work at it.
[00:45:31.22 - 00:45:37.08] Some of the, like growing up watching Newcastle, you know,
[00:45:37.08 - 00:45:41.14] Kevin Keegan said he wasn't the most naturally gifted player and that's why he
[00:45:41.14 - 00:45:46.00] went into management because he'd had to work very hard as an individual and so he
[00:45:46.00 - 00:45:49.18] knew what it was like for most of the people in the dressing room and what they
[00:45:49.18 - 00:45:51.09] would need to do to be better.
[00:45:51.09 - 00:45:55.04] And then there are the rock stars, the superstars where you know they just turn
[00:45:55.04 - 00:45:57.22] up and don't train and are amazing on a Saturday.
[00:45:59.22 - 00:46:06.08] And Dominic, as we wrap, what do you think leaders need to rethink about culture?
[00:46:06.08 - 00:46:10.02] What should we be more mindful, more intentional about?
[00:46:11.15 - 00:46:21.01] I think that teams and people are really your only sustainable competitive
[00:46:21.01 - 00:46:22.07] advantage.
[00:46:22.16 - 00:46:29.07] And therefore, it is the only lever you have to pull.
[00:46:29.14 - 00:46:33.19] And I think you as a leader or a manager, wherever you are in the organization,
[00:46:33.19 - 00:46:36.15] you've got two, you've only got two roles, I think, as a leader.
[00:46:36.15 - 00:46:40.22] One is hire the best team you can afford and replace yourself.
[00:46:41.20 - 00:46:44.19] Because unless you make yourself redundant, you haven't brought the team
[00:46:44.19 - 00:46:45.17] on.
[00:46:45.22 - 00:46:50.14] And you can't promote leaders if the team won't work without them.
[00:46:50.14 - 00:46:55.06] And so I think that's the, if I look at cultures where, you know, you can dive
[00:46:55.06 - 00:46:58.09] into, you can look at different bits of the culture, but I think those two things
[00:46:58.09 - 00:47:02.09] are true in great cultures.
[00:47:02.11 - 00:47:06.13] They've got, because the performance, you know, the performance data is if people
[00:47:06.13 - 00:47:10.19] are in flow at work, you know, they're five to 10 times more...
[00:47:10.19 - 00:47:14.15] You know, if they're doing a job that they enjoy, teams that are enjoying the work
[00:47:14.15 - 00:47:16.04] that they do are in flow.
[00:47:16.04 - 00:47:19.06] And if you can build a team that's in flow, it's five to 10 times more
[00:47:19.06 - 00:47:20.17] productive, right?
[00:47:20.17 - 00:47:23.23] So you're, and it's like compound interest.
[00:47:23.23 - 00:47:26.19] It's like all day, every day, forever.
[00:47:26.19 - 00:47:31.21] And that is a competitive advantage that you're, just, they can look at what you
[00:47:31.21 - 00:47:32.05] do.
[00:47:32.05 - 00:47:35.07] And because their brains are wired differently, they can never, they can
[00:47:35.07 - 00:47:36.09] never compete against you.
[00:47:36.09 - 00:47:40.05] They can never copy what you do.
[00:47:40.05 - 00:47:46.10] And so that's where I think the, and it's hard, because over time, you know, you get
[00:47:46.10 - 00:47:47.20] this regression to the mean.
[00:47:47.20 - 00:47:51.06] You know, the bigger the company, the more likely it is the employees are going to be
[00:47:51.06 - 00:47:52.14] average, right?
[00:47:52.14 - 00:47:59.08] And so as you scale, it gets, you just get this drag on the organisation.
[00:47:59.08 - 00:48:02.21] You know, you start at a higher, a couple of people who aren't great, got to work
[00:48:02.21 - 00:48:07.02] extremely hard and be extremely vigilant.
[00:48:07.02 - 00:48:09.06] You know, all of our executive team have to be A's.
[00:48:09.06 - 00:48:13.04] No company's outperformed its leadership team ever in the history of business.
[00:48:13.04 - 00:48:15.21] And then are all of our people leaders A players?
[00:48:15.21 - 00:48:18.19] Because otherwise they won't hire A players, they'll hire B players and C
[00:48:18.19 - 00:48:19.16] players.
[00:48:19.16 - 00:48:24.05] And then if we do that, then we can keep our A player ratio really, really high.
[00:48:24.05 - 00:48:28.18] We can have talent density and companies with talent density attract, just attract
[00:48:28.18 - 00:48:29.21] better people.
[00:48:29.21 - 00:48:35.11] One of the company we work for in the UK, a recruitment company called La Fosse
[00:48:35.11 - 00:48:36.09] Associates.
[00:48:36.09 - 00:48:39.02] They have been in the Sunday Times best companies to work for.
[00:48:39.02 - 00:48:42.16] They have been the number one recruiter to work for in the UK 10 years straight.
[00:48:42.19 - 00:48:45.09] They don't spend any money on recruitment.
[00:48:45.09 - 00:48:50.04] People in recruitment companies looking for another job send them their CV all the
[00:48:50.04 - 00:48:56.07] time because they are not in a war for talent.
[00:48:56.07 - 00:48:59.16] They have talent knocking down their door all day long.
[00:48:59.19 - 00:49:03.08] And so it's just, they're in a commodity, they're in recruitment, like it's a
[00:49:03.08 - 00:49:04.03] commodity.
[00:49:04.03 - 00:49:04.19] Totally.
[00:49:04.19 - 00:49:07.00] And yet they differentiate on culture.
[00:49:08.01 - 00:49:08.16] Amazing.
[00:49:08.16 - 00:49:14.03] And like you say, a good culture that puts people in flow on things they really enjoy
[00:49:14.03 - 00:49:20.08] to work on can be five or 10 times more performant than one that doesn't.
[00:49:20.20 - 00:49:22.02] Yeah.
[00:49:22.17 - 00:49:23.21] And you're just winning.
[00:49:23.21 - 00:49:25.19] You just get up in the morning, it's just fun.
[00:49:25.19 - 00:49:29.01] You go to work and you win and you come home and you've won and you get up and
[00:49:29.01 - 00:49:32.01] you, you know, I was, I love doing what I do.
[00:49:32.01 - 00:49:34.21] I didn't, I didn't, till I started coaching, I had no idea I would love
[00:49:34.21 - 00:49:35.14] coaching.
[00:49:35.14 - 00:49:37.20] I thought I loved being a CEO until I was a coach.
[00:49:37.20 - 00:49:39.22] And then I realised it's just fab.
[00:49:39.22 - 00:49:44.04] I mean, on Monday, I was like, back to, I'd had a series of coaching calls.
[00:49:44.04 - 00:49:49.05] I had a gap at lunchtime, but I had seven hours of coaching, different CEOs, one
[00:49:49.05 - 00:49:50.02] after another.
[00:49:50.02 - 00:49:53.17] and it got to five o 'clock, it's like, what a bang, the day had gone in the blink
[00:49:53.17 - 00:49:55.00] of an eye.
[00:49:55.10 - 00:49:57.19] And it's like, I felt energized.
[00:49:58.00 - 00:50:03.18] This reminds me of something that Naval Ravikant said, which is, find what is play
[00:50:03.18 - 00:50:07.06] to you, but is work for others.
[00:50:07.06 - 00:50:12.07] And you can be the best and the only one in the world for that.
[00:50:12.20 - 00:50:13.16] Yeah.
[00:50:14.07 - 00:50:15.11] So well done.
[00:50:16.15 - 00:50:18.06] Thank you very much for having me on.
[00:50:18.06 - 00:50:21.08] can people find out more about you?
[00:50:21.08 - 00:50:24.03] I imagine the book is available...
[00:50:24.03 - 00:50:27.00] I'm sure it's audio because I've listened to it.
[00:50:27.06 - 00:50:28.18] And it's in...
[00:50:28.18 - 00:50:39.03] Yeah, if you go to monkhouseandcompany .com, then you can sign up to get our not
[00:50:39.03 - 00:50:40.21] shit weekly newsletter.
[00:50:42.04 - 00:50:48.03] And if you pay postage, we'll send you a copy of the book.
[00:50:52.06 - 00:50:55.09] Love to talk to you if I can help anybody in any way.
[00:50:56.22 - 00:51:01.12] Dominic, thank you for being generous with your time.
[00:51:02.01 - 00:51:06.02] And to those that listen to us, thank you for being generous with your time.
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