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The Build a Vibrant Culture Podcast brings together amazing leaders, entrepreneurs, and experts to share the successes, challenges, and secrets to living and leading as a VIBRANT Leader.
Tune-in each week as Nicole Greer interviews a new Vibrant Leader.
Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com
[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and insights you need to turn your dreams into your destiny. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development.
[00:00:21] Now here's your host, a professional speaker, coach, and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:29] Nicole: Welcome everybody to the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the vibrant coach. And I have another amazing, vibrant guest on the show today. His name is Richard Medcalf. Let me tell you all about Richard. Richard describes himself as a, "what you get if you were to put a McKinsey consultant, a slightly unorthodox pastor, and Freddie Mercury" into a blender. Don't miss his background. This is my new good friend, Richard. I'm so glad he's here. He's on a mission to help top business leaders become forces for good at scale and is a trusted advisor to some of the most successful CEOs and entrepreneurs on the planet. His clients include CEOs of billion dollar firms, an entrepreneur of the year, an Olympic medalist and founders of Tech Unicorns.
[00:01:19] He is the host of the Impact Multiplier CEO podcast and author of Making Time for Strategy and has an insatiable love for spicy food and the electric guitar. Please welcome to the show, Richard. How are you?
[00:01:34] Richard Medcalf: I'm feeling vibrant already. Yeah great.
[00:01:38] Nicole: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. So we have, we have a little something in common. We're both big fans of Freddie and of Queen. I was sharing with you when we did our little pre call that I had the most epic experience in Monaco. Freddie wasn't there of course, but we had these Queen folks who did a whole show. And I mean, it was epic. So I love it. And I love a nice yellow jacket. So I should have worn my yellow jacket today. Where's your yellow jacket, by the way?
[00:02:05] Richard Medcalf: Uh well if you look on my website really carefully you will find a picture of me dressed up as Freddie Mercury. That's a little bit of a little bit of my wink to some of my influences that I try to sneak in there. You have to look carefully though.
[00:02:17] Nicole: Oh, that's so fantastic. All right. Well, let's talk about how to Build a Vibrant Culture. And, you know, you've got an amazing book. You sent me a copy. I'm so grateful. "Making Time for Strategy: How to be Less Busy and More Successful." So right at the beginning of the book, you talk about how everybody is crying and carrying on about how busy they are. So why do you think that is? Why, why is everybody so dang busy?
[00:02:43] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, well before I answer that let me step back, actually; it might help with some context. Then we can look at why people are busy. So, um you know I'm on a mission in life and the mission is really important to me because I really believe that if the world's top leaders are not forces for good in the world, do not change the world in a positive way, then who will, right?
[00:03:03] And so my clients, you know, I see, top CEOs, entrepreneurs, other C-suite leaders, they've got the resources, the relationships, the education, the experience. All of it, right? Everything they could possibly need, really, to play big. And, however, I see that most of those leaders are not playing at the level they could be playing at. They know secretly that they're not. And it's my mission in life to help them break through some of those practical issues and some of those internal issues which hold them back. There's often fear, there's often all these things going on. We can get into that. But on that journey, one of the first things I saw, and still see with leaders is, "You know, Richard, I'd love to think up to all that big picture stuff and like go for the big goals and moon shots and everything, that'd be amazing. And yet, right now, I'm kind of, frankly, I've just got so many responsibilities. I feel I'm stuck in the weeds. I'm being pulled in all directions. And so like we have to solve that before I can then really fulfill my potential, do all the things I know I can do."
[00:04:03] So the reason I wrote the book was because I've had so many conversations with these really high level leaders and also with their teams and people throughout the organization. And I realized this was a common problem, almost an endemic problem in business. So I wanted to bring the tools and techniques that I found have really worked. And I'll talk about those in a second. So really my point is this book is a small part in the overall mission, and what I find is that leaders need to become more strategic, and this is freeing them up to do that. And the other part is they need to become more magnetic, which is to be on mission, to have a vision that they really care about, and a passion that really comes through in their work.
[00:04:41] So I wanted just to talk about that, because that's a way that I can bring a bit of my own magnetism, and talk about why I do what I do, right? I had a handicapped sister, cerebrally disabled, who got straight zeros whilst I got straight A's, you know, she couldn't speak, she had all these things, she died at an early age Um, and so I really have that sense of you know, if you're given all these opportunities, go for them, play full out.
[00:05:04] So that's like the context and this book really came out of talking with these leaders. And so you ask well why is it, why do these leaders struggle? So let me answer that question. And the answer is that we live in a world of infinity, and the higher you rise, two things happen. First of all, you're exposed to more and more of this world of infinity. So literally, your to-do list can never end, because you send one email, you get two back. You go onto social media, there's infinite conversations available to you. You watch one film, or read one book, and you're recommended ten others. Right, so it truly is infinite. And most leaders have actually got to where they've got to by actually taking on an awful lot and delivering on it. And the problem is that leaders actually get caught into this, in the infinity trap, which is when infinity starts to bear down on them, when they realize there's all these things to do... and also, they're perhaps at a more senior level than they've ever been. So what do you do? You go, well, I've got to deliver more than ever before. So I'm going to just have to accelerate and do even work even faster and even more intensely. Deal with all the opportunities coming my way, juggle everything. But of course, what happens is we get into superhero mode. We're running fast. We're feeling good. But our vision really starts to narrow because we feel we're focused, but we're actually missing the game changing moves. We're missing the creativity. We're missing the opportunities. Nicole, I've even seen that video on YouTube where the basketball team are passing a basketball between them and you have to count how many times they pass it
[00:06:39] Nicole: Yes, but the gorilla walks through, or the bear, the bear walks through. That's what it is.
[00:06:43] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, I think it's a gorilla. Yeah, whatever. A gorilla. I think, yeah, I remember the gorilla. I never saw it, right. Because most people, they don't see the gorilla, who literally walks right through the match and waves at the camera and then walks off. Because your eye is on the ball, you're following the ball, you're doing your job, you're counting the passes. So if we can't even see somebody in a gorilla suit walk through a basketball match, what else are we missing in the chaos of work? Right? When we're heads down delivering getting onto multiple calls multitasking doing all the things, right? And for me, it brings us back into incremental progress and not into breakthrough progress.
[00:07:21] Nicole: Yeah, yeah, and so just on page one of the book, I've got some words of yours that I want to read to everybody because right on page one, he just talked about infinity, so he says in the second paragraph, "You may say that 'infinite' is an exaggeration, but I don't think so. The way I see it, we live in this world of infinity. Technology has created a unique situation in human history where every knowledge worker faces infinite demands and opportunities. There are infinite pulls on our time, infinite ways to build relationships, infinite content to consume. If you're not convinced, just go check your messages, your social media accounts, and your favorite streaming app. We are faced with infinite opportunities and possibilities." So that's what you just said, but I think that paragraph is so good. I highlighted it. I was like, you know, that's the reality check that everybody needs. And so we have to be discerning and discriminate on how we spend our time. And you say that there's a number one KPI that leaders need to have. Will you talk about the number one KPI?
[00:08:25] Richard Medcalf: Yeah so again i'm fascinated at this idea of reaching potential and creating what I call exponential impact. So I love this idea of not just achieving 10 percent more but 10x more right? And so I was always being curious like, what is it about leaders who seem to have a good career, but fairly linear, and they gradually get promotions and move forward and it's all good. Perhaps stagnate a bit at the end, you know, whatever. But what's the difference between them and leaders who seem to have this exponential curve, that they get one project, and then they get another project or job and it seems to be way better, and then they get another one, and you know, they end up in stratospheric levels. And, sure there's various reasons for that, but I think really for me that the big predictor of that is what I call how much strategic time you have in your week.
[00:09:17] So strategic time is the time that you're investing, not so much in your current success, but in the things which are going to create success in the future. So in the projects, the capabilities, the relationships, the resources, the skills that are going to set you up for a better next quarter or better next year. Not just delivering this quarter or this year's objectives, but making everything easier and more impactful next quarter.
[00:09:45] And so let me give you this analogy. Imagine that you're a business and you're a business who has pretty much zero margin. Not profitable, really, just barely breaking even. Well, that business doesn't have much money. It's very precarious. Never quite sure what's going to happen month to month. And, how's that business going to invest in the future? It's hardly likely that that business is going to dominate their market, right? They don't have the resources to invest because they haven't got the money, right? So they just kind of, they might grow very gradually, but it's precarious. Now imagine another business that actually perhaps you know the same situation, but then they decide to perhaps cut some costs or whatever, right, and they reorganize and they manage to create some margin each month that they can reinvest in the future. Perhaps they're reinvesting in marketing, or perhaps they're building new capability or perhaps they've paid an influencer, who knows what it is, right? But they're making investments, perhaps they've upgraded their brand, perhaps they've built a new customer relationship system, whatever it is, but because they made that investment, then next month, it's going to be better. They're going to have more visibility. They're going to have better systems. They're going to have happier customers, more referrals. And so they're going to start to pick up, momentum and they're going to invest the extra momentum and the extra margin that they're creating once again, into the business, and they're going to start to take a very different trajectory. That kind of business can perhaps dominate their market because they're able to invest.
[00:11:09] And so that analogy applies to us, right? Like we are that business too. Some of us, we have no time, no time to invest. We get by every week. Some weeks we have a little bit of time and we crash. And some weeks we're completely overwhelmed. But we get to the end of our day and we say where was my strategic time? Where was the time where I got to invest in the future and you go, well, there wasn't much evidence of it despite all my ideas. So many leaders are in that plan and how are you ever going to dominate your market? How are you ever going to be the leader that you could be? Whereas I think if you create strategic time this ring fence time where you're actually working on the future success, then you can pull away from the pack and the more that you actually rise, the more time you can create for the next level of investment that you want to make. So that's really strategic time and that's why I say it's the number one KPI, number one performance indicator of future success.
[00:12:00] Nicole: Yeah, fantastic. And on page 23 and 24, you've got seven things that you say will differentiate your life if you'll do this. Number one, take your strategic time. It's an investment. That's how you need to think about it and then you will get your rewards later. Number two says the most important project is the project no one is asking for. Will you talk a little bit about that before we keep going?
[00:12:24] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, sure. So the most important project is the one no one is asking for. What this means is that most people ask you about operations, right, whereas what is strategic is normally the thing that you come up with and that you see as the advantage. So here's a quick story.
[00:12:38] Early in my days, I was a young graduate in an analyst firm, consulting firm. We had to build business plans, financial models for our clients. And we got billed to clients and that was how we were successful, right? By having a high billing. Well, after a few weeks, I realized that many of these models we were building from scratch and took a lot of time, uh, but there were fundamentally very similar things going on in a lot of these models. So, I took some time after work, you know, in spare moments I could find, to build my own set of templates that were designed to look really good, and be flexible, and allow me to run scenarios, and various other things. All my colleagues thought I was crazy, like, Richard, why are you not billing your time to clients? You're just messing around here, playing. There was nobody was asking me to do this. In fact, they were telling me not to do it.
[00:13:23] Nicole: Right.
[00:13:23] Richard Medcalf: What happened is fast forward, fast forward two or three weeks, and I built a template which was mine. It had a great style. It was, it made working on it really, really fast because it was kind of nicely organized and there's macros and all these kind of things, geeky things. But what it took them half a week to do or a week to do, it took me a morning to do. So suddenly I was able to create strategic time for myself because I had actually simplified and compressed and improved on the core process that I was being asked to do. So, so now, while they were all building their models, I was working on the deliverables, I was managing projects, I was working on the sales process, and so I was able to actually go faster in that company than most of my peers. I became the youngest ever partner, not just because of that one thing, but because of that kind of mindset that freed me up from doing what everybody else was doing to doing the next level thing. And that for me is just a little example of the most important project is the one no one is asking you for.
[00:14:24] Another example, when I was at Cisco, I finished a project, um, I spent a day extracting all the insights, putting it into a presentation. Again, nobody asked me to do that. And at the end of the day, I was even feeling a bit down, like, why am I wasting my time on this? And yet it really put me on the map because it was like insights which nobody had ever seen before, coming out of fresh customer work, and I'd really spent time on sharpening up and polishing. And so I was asked to present around the world on this topic, present to key customers. Again, no one had asked me to do it. But it was strategic because rather than just moving on to the next project, I actually built thought leadership, built intellectual capital, right? Expanded my network. All those strategic things that so often we don't feel we have time to do. So that's why the most important project is the one no one's asked me for.
[00:15:15] Nicole: Mm. I love it. Okay, and again, I'm on page 23. I don't think we're going to get all the way through this amazing book by Richard Medcalf, who is my guest today on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. But number three, it says, if you don't make time for it, it will never happen. And so, you know, Richard, this old saying is coming in my head. It's one of the sayings we say in our little entrepreneurial circles, which is: _you have to work on the business, not always in the business_. So this is what you're saying. Yes?
[00:15:41] Richard Medcalf: Um, yeah, yeah. It's one way of putting it. Yeah, definitely. Always working on the business, working on your own impact as well, right? So not just doing the thing that makes you impactful, but figuring out what your next level of impact is going to be.
[00:15:53] Nicole: That's right. And then number four is it will make much of what you do easier or unnecessary in the future. It is probably related to building new capabilities, new systems, new skills, and new relationships. And then number six, it's a project, so it needs a finish date and a clear deliverable so you know you're done. And number seven, you need momentum. So set a clear finish line even to only complete a single phase of the project within the next 90 days. So it's also very much about being disciplined.
[00:16:23] Richard Medcalf: It is. Yes. Although, my, my secret confession is I don't feel I'm that disciplined. So, for me, sometimes people think, oh, you must be so organized, all these frameworks and tools. Well, no, almost like the reason I focus on making time for strategy is because for me, that feels like the lazy alternative, right? Otherwise you just got to work like crazy and only achieve incremental results, right? So I'd much rather create space and find the creative solution rather than just run, run, run really fast. So I'm probably being a bit hard on myself. I definitely do buckle down and I do the work, but I don't think it, you have to be somebody who's some kind of, you know, implementation machine to benefit from these tools, right? It's not just about how fast you can optimize your computer, you know, in fact, all those things, all those kind of hacks don't always serve you because even if you're super organized, perhaps you're just going to get more and more done. But is it the right thing that you're doing? Are you actually making time to think about what really needs, what really matters? And that's really what I'm focusing in the book, right? Are we actually thinking about what matters? Or are we just putting our heads down and delivering?
[00:17:32] Nicole: That's right. That's right. So, I think in chapter eight, you talk about people need to choose their own adventure and that there are two dimensions of that. The first one is taking action and the other one is shifting perspective and you use the word TIME_;_ you break it down. So you say to take action there are certain Tactics that I need to do, Influence that I need to make happen, the Mindset that I need to have and the Environment that maybe is for others. So will you talk a little bit about your x and y axis in your little model about T I M E?
[00:18:10] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. So obviously I was very happy when I realized that my acronym was going to spell the word time.
[00:18:14] Nicole: Yeah, that's so great, right?
[00:18:18] Richard Medcalf: But it came to me. I mean, I'm an executive coach and CEO coach, entrepreneurial coach, right? But in terms of what my main focus, what I spend most of my time doing, it's working with leaders and teams, helping them be more strategic and more magnetic. And so what I found was that tactics by themselves, which most people turn to, aren't enough because they don't deal with infinity, right? I like to call them a mortal's weapon against the infinite, right? Against the divide almost. It's like you can't, you can't do it just by having better Gmail filters or a better workflow for meetings.
[00:18:50] But sometimes you need that stuff. Sometimes you do need some of those tactical things. And my experience is leaders don't often have some of the basic blocking and tackling in place. And if they don't have that, then everything becomes a lot harder. So tactics are important. But then the problem is that even if you build a plan... and in the book, I go through each of these areas... In the tactics, we'd talk about workflows, talking about a plan to really free up time, but once you have the plan, that's not enough because if you can't influence the people around you to actually get them to buy into your new way of working, their expectation is just that you're going to come back, and do the things you always do. It's why I like to say, you know that you have the diet saboteurs, right? Which are your family, right? So, when you want to go on a diet or you know, lose weight or whatever it is, generally your family are the ones who are going to wave the chocolate cake under your nose because they're comfortable with you in that mode of operation, and they don't want to feel guilty because you're now going out for a run early in the morning or because you're skipping the chocolate cake and making them feel guilty, right? So often it's the people closest to us who unwittingly actually make it hard for us to make a change in our business. If our boss isn't online or bring our stakeholders or get our team on board then it's going to be really hard to up level how we work. And that's influence.
[00:20:07] It's a personal development challenge, this stuff; it's not just tactical. It's all to do with what do we think is necessary, possible and desirable. A lot of us say, you know what, being busy is good. I'm making things happen. I quite enjoy it. It's what people expect of me. It's how I prove my worth in this organization. Yeah, there's many reasons. That's just one. There's many reasons why a mindset can actually hold us back, right? It's often one of the fundamental things. If we believe that we hyper-responsive be a performer, then we're always going to be distracted by notifications just in case. So mindset is really important and then environment and this really where it links with your work as well, Nicole, because Environment is really around the culture that we create as leaders because it's all very well freeing ourselves up, but then if our team is maxed out, how can we delegate them to come up? If our team is maxed out, are they focusing on the high value things or have they just got their nose down, and we're stuck in the infinity trap. So, I found that each of these areas are possible limiting factors. And so in the book, I give a little diagnostic test that people can figure out where should they start.
[00:21:12] Because, to be honest, if your mindset is fine, don't begin on with mindset, but perhaps you need to focus on influence, right? Or if you've got amazing tactics, don't begin with tactics, you might need to work on the environment instead. So, I wanted to make the book easy for people to dip into and get straight to the things that they need to work on.
[00:21:28] Nicole: Yeah, yeah. And I love what you said about, "leaders think they need to be hyper-responsive." So one of the things that I share with people all the time, Richard, is they've got this thing in their head about having an open door policy. And I need to do the research on it, but you know, everybody's like, we need to have an open door policy. And I'm like, well, yeah, but that doesn't mean your door is open all the time. You've got to shut your door and you've got to do this strategic time that you're talking about, so that when you do open your door, you can give people your undivided attention, your full self, your full energy. What are your thoughts about the open door policy? Because I think that that is a mindset that's kind of taking a weird turn in people's minds.
[00:22:12] Richard Medcalf: Mm. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I completely agree. I always tell my clients that an open door policy, it's okay. But _when_ is the question.
[00:22:19] Nicole: Right. What are your office hours, right?
[00:22:22] Richard Medcalf: So if you want to have no boundaries then just have an open door policy. But it's not going to serve you because actually you'll be trying to do deep work, somebody will walk in because the door's open. So you have to now wrench yourself out of focused, creative work to deal with an issue that might or might not be very important, probably not that important, and you're probably going to be a bit frustrated because you've stopped doing your important work and you're now dealing with this more minor issue. And they're going to probably pick up actually on the fact that you're a bit annoyed, even if you hide it.
[00:22:53] Nicole: That's exactly right.
[00:22:54] Richard Medcalf: And so perhaps then either the people keep coming and you keep getting distracted and annoyed and be unproductive, or they pick up on the fact that actually you're not very approachable because you always seem a bit annoyed whenever you walk into their office. So, I talk about creating boundaries, right? Boundaries are really important. Boundaries actually create value. One of my clients created a dramatic increase in his impact because we realized that the time he'd been most successful in the year before was when he'd been on the beach all day or by the pool on holiday. And, he had a call at the end of the day. So he left his family, went back about an hour before his call, really got in the zone. He was all relaxed from his day on the beach, and he nailed this call. He won the biggest ever deal his company had ever had.
[00:23:39] Nicole: Hmm. Fantastic.
[00:23:40] Richard Medcalf: Because he was completely focused and in the zone. And he realized that when he looked back at his impact as a leader, there were these key moments which is where his impact came from, a key meeting, a key conversation. And he said, I need to optimize my life around those key moments because all the other stuff, all the emails and, you know, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff didn't really matter. It was these key moments. So by creating scarcity around those key moments of impact, he was able to really up his game and his business is really sought. How this relates to open door policy is you have to create those ring fence moments where you could have real impact.
[00:24:19] So, for example, when I work with clients, you know, I've been able to free people up to 30 percent of their time, right? Where they thought it was completely impossible, you know, or at least five or 10 hours a week, it's really, really easy to do actually, when you have the right tools. And one of the things we look at is like, when do you need to be available for your team? Let's put that in the diary. So you have it, right? And I've had people who've had very, very operational roles, who need to be accessible for their team a lot. And they actually realize that if they have a slot at the end of their morning, and a slot at the end of their afternoon, where they can catch up on low intensity work, like emails and catch up, and the door is open at the same time, That's completely fine because then they are dealing with all the issues that have bubbled up and people know where to find them, when to find them. And then the rest of the day, they will actually concentrate on the higher value tasks. But yeah, completely long way to say completely agree.
[00:25:07] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:25:08] Richard Medcalf: You know, open door policies. You're basically just abdicating responsibility for really focusing on the things that only you can do.
[00:25:14] Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm going to dovetail into what you talk about, so the T in time is tactics. And I love that you instruct everybody in chapter 10, page 38, that they need to define their starting point. You know, like you said, most times people think about time management, it's all the tips and the tricks and the hacks, but I think getting really real about your calendar, and as you say, the diary, I think is important. So you've got in here, define your starting point, look at what needs to be done daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually. All right, get that on the calendar. But then on page 41, you have this really cool tool called the commitment inventory. I think people don't realize all the things they've said yes to.
[00:25:58] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. Yeah, I did it with clients. Yeah, there's a tool in the book bonuses that people can use. There's like a sheet, you can fill it in. Basically, it's very simple first of all, you just go through your calendar for the last few weeks and you just figure out what actually are you doing, right? And look forward a bit like what are the commitments you've made? What are the meetings? You go, I've got one to one with my boss. It's one hour and it's every week. Okay, I've got one to ones with my team. I've got five of them, and they're every two weeks. Okay, I've got this project meeting, it's an hour and a half. It's every week. I spend about two hours a day doing emails, and it's every day. Okay, and you just list it all out, get it all out, all the things that you actually feel you need to be doing and then you can figure out how much time per week that is and then you start to say how exciting and impactful is that for me? And it's about the intensity of it. So if you go, you know what, there is five minutes in that meeting which is really important, but it lasts 3 hours so it's like a one out of ten, right? Because if I could just be there for five minutes, it'd be a ten out of ten, right? But actually I've got to be there for three hours so it it's not so good. And when you start to do that, you start to realize, oh, these are the ones I actually want to keep, and these are the ones that actually are not contributing. And again, my goal here is to get people out of, "I need to do it," and get you into a contribution mindset.
[00:27:16] So if actually that meeting with your boss is not contributing to what you're meant to be doing in the organization, actually, that's a conversation to have with your boss. And rather than going, Oh, I can't change it. It's my boss. You can actually say, "You know what, I've had a look and actually I realized that I think the way we're using our time is not optimum, or I think actually we could perhaps move to a two weekly rhythm. I think we'd probably get more done in those, or it'd be more intense, more valuable meetings," or you can start to look at different ways to reconfigure it. But until you actually know what's your starting point... because then, once you know that you can say okay I now know where my time is being accounted for. How am I going to free up five hours a week or ten hours a week?
[00:27:55] Now you can actually deal with it because you've got the spreadsheet, right, and you can start to prioritize. So actually doing that prioritization is a key part of it. And then you can make some implementation plans. I think the other part, which I don't perhaps talk about as much in the book, but it's really important, is then organizing and streamlining your diary that you actually create space and themes rather than it just being all over the place and you don't know where you are.
[00:28:19] Most people's diaries are a complete mess because they didn't actually realize it's possible to create a flow. So for me, I never have calls before- well I rarely have calls before about 1 PM in the afternoon. I very rarely do calls on Mondays, all my team calls are on Fridays, you know, I have very kind of clear flows to my week so I kind of know where I am in the week. It doesn't always work. Life happens, you know, a conference happens and your week is changed. But there is like a natural flow to things and most people don't have that and they feel they can't create it but actually, you can create it a lot more than you think. There might be a few exceptions, but even in a large corporate, you can actually create much more of a flow than you think. Mainly because nobody else is bothering to do it. So if you actually decide you want to create flow and structure, then people will tend to fit around you actually more than you think.
[00:29:11] Nicole: Yes, and I just want to put a big exclamation point right there. Yeah. I think we, become a victim instead of a victor. We're like, well, this is the way it is at this company. No, somebody needs to like say, no, I'm not available on Fridays because that's when I do this. Right? Or I do that. So, you make an appointment with yourself, we've all heard that one before. And Richard alluded to it just a moment ago, but you can go to xquadrant.com. XQUADRANT.com/bookbonuses to get your commitment inventory. All right. So y'all go... y'all, that's how we talk in North Carolina, Richard... go there and take a look at that.
[00:29:49] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference, or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com. And be sure to check out Nicole's TEDxTalk at VibrantCulture.com.
[00:30:16] Nicole: Okay. So I want to talk next about making bold decisions. So I think it's a good segue, too, it's like, you know, if nobody else is going to organize their time and everybody else is going to stay in the infinity loop and not shift the flywheel and do all the good things, I'm going to have to take some bold action here, some bold decisions. And on page 49, you've got a list of the crash method. I think this might just empower people to think differently. And that's what this building a vibrant culture is all about. You got to do something different. You got to make the light bulbs go off over everybody's head. Everybody's lit from within.
[00:30:51] So the first thing in the crash method, first thing you say is we're about to get incredibly practical. The crash method, which is an actual acronym that he has trademarked, consists of five strategies that will allow you to quickly free up significant amounts of time.
[00:31:08] So this is getting real. All right. So the first thing in your crash method is _cut_. Abandon or cancel the activity completely. Will you talk about just cutting things right out of your diary?
[00:31:23] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, that's what it says. Just cut it out. I think it was Elon Musk who says, if you're not putting things back in, then you're not cutting enough in any process or system that you're trying to streamline.
[00:31:33] So, everything's a test, right? You know, cut out meetings you think are essential, and actually if you realize they are essential, you can put them back in or you might realize you'll need them half as frequently. But generally we don't start bold enough um And so I would say just look for actually what's not an 8 out of 10. So I love to actually get people to rank things on a scale of 1 to 10. Be really careful about what's a 7 because 7 sounds like yeah, it's not bad. It's pretty good. But actually it's closer to a 5 than to a 10 So for me, if it's not an eight or above, it probably is not adding the value that you want it to be adding.
[00:32:08] Nicole: Okay. All right. So the next thing in our crash method is _reduce._ Shrink the scope of the activity dramatically.
[00:32:16] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, you can do that many ways, right? So you can, very simply, you can take an hour meeting and go to the first 15 minutes of it and just tell people, you know, I can only attend the first 15 minutes, but I'd love to get the quick update at the start. You can decide you're only going to attend once a month, not once a week.
[00:32:31] You can, if you're writing a report, you can agree that you were going to just send an executive summary, right? Or you're going to use AI and just generate a transcript, right? Rather than writing something up, you're going to take a photo of the whiteboard and just send them that. So _Reduce_ is all about how do you just make this thing less time consuming. For meetings, it generally is about reducing the time you spend there, or reducing the meeting duration, or just coming less often. And then for deliverables, it's how can you actually just, Do you have to do everything that you're doing? Can you get 80 percent of the impact with 20 percent of the time?
[00:33:05] Nicole: Yeah. And you know, I think that people put things on your calendar and they put an hour. It's habitual. It doesn't have some discernment in it. Like, I think it'll only take ten minutes. Richard Medcalf is really smart. He'll catch on real quick. I think we'll need ten minutes. We won't need an entire hour for this meeting. So I think just really thinking about how much time it actually takes. The next one in crash is a _sign_. And so this is the old thing of delegation and I tell you people are scared to death to give things away because they just don't think other people can do them, or do them as excellently. Talk a little bit about a sign.
[00:33:44] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. Well, perhaps the way to come at this is probably backwards, which is one of my other principles from earlier on in the book, that you can't free yourself up from operations because the pull is always there. And even if you do free yourself up, you'll find yourself doing more operations and it's the same really with delegation and assigning tasks. Um, it's better to actually free yourself up for something more exciting. So once you've actually got clear on what that improvement project is that we were talking about earlier, you know, what is that, how do you want to use your strategic time, right? What's the thing which is going to really help you move forward? So once you have that vision of what you want to create, hopefully then it becomes easier to delegate because you've got bigger fish to fry. I work with one client who was a mid level manager actually, in one of my main clients' firms in finance. And when he started working, he was completely overwhelmed. Had no time for anything, couldn't even speak to his team. He was just completely out of it. And he did the commitment inventory. We identified that at least over 30% of his time he was spending on things which had been really important for him to get in his current role. It was things like, commissions for the sales force and your month end account and a few other things. And, he was the one who had mastered all this complexity. But now he was the one doing it month after month. I said to him, look, you're never going to become CFO by doing these activities. I mean, this is just keeping the lights on.
[00:35:07] Nicole: Right. You're the accountant. Yes.
[00:35:10] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, it's necessary, but you're not going to break through to the next level. And so he got the point. He got the point and he realized, yeah, if I keep doing this, I'm just frittering my life away here, doing the same old, same old. Once he had the motivation, then we started to look at it and he realized, you know, I've been treating my team as if they're idiots, as if they couldn't possibly learn what I learned.
[00:35:29] I forget that myself.
[00:35:29] Nicole: Yeah, don't miss what he's saying right now, everybody. This is a common issue right here. Yeah,
[00:35:35] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. So I was able to figure it out myself because I was thrown in at the deep end. And I'm assuming that I'm going to have to write a line by line instruction manual for my team for them to figure it out.
[00:35:46] Nicole: SOPs out the wall, right? Yeah,
[00:35:48] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, and so suddenly he's making it his problem to document every single thing that he possibly knows before his team can start it. So it's like another massive task, even more so than actually figuring out in the first place. But instead when he realized that there was perhaps a different approach and he could actually start to empower people. So, you know he was there, perhaps do it once where people looking at over his shoulder. I mean there were various tactics he used but actually very quickly he was able to empower his team to do that. He freed up time and he went to his boss and said, I can't believe we've got all this time now, you know, and he got the promotion and all this other stuff because he was able to break out of that safety zone of what he currently does.
[00:36:24] So delegation, it can bring up obviously fears and so forth. I think when it's something which is not in your genius though, and it's something which is recurring, then the time and investment it will take you to outsource it isn't much as what you'll save, right? When it's a one off, then it can be a bit harder when it's a one off here and a one off there. But then often if you step back a step and you realize all these one off things are probably not quite as one off as you realize, they're probably all doing fundamentally something quite similar with the same tools, the same IT systems, the same background knowledge. So again, it's a commitment issue. Perhaps I'll stop there. I think, be committed to your own success and realize that these tasks are not in the scope of the future successful you.
[00:37:04] Nicole: That's right. That's right. And, he said this over and over, but I just want it to land for myself and for all of you listening. So he's talking about, I need to change my time situation. But I need to change it for me, personally, for my future and for the future of the company. So I just want everybody to hear that. If you're like, what's in it for me? There's so much in it for you, personally, just hear that story of that young man that finally woke up and now he's gotten promoted, right? And so what does that impact? It impacts the quality of the home I live in, the amount of money I can give away, where my kids go to school, you know, all the things, right? So, getting your act together, uh, Making Time for Strategy. That's the book we're talking about with Richard Medcalf. All right. We've got two more and just a few minutes left, but let's talk about _systemize_. Okay. Build template scripts and processes to streamline. So that's what you talked about in your first story, right?
[00:37:56] When you were the consultant.
[00:37:58] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's many ways you can do that, you know, systematize. I mean, probably not got time to go through all of the things there, but yeah, how do you extract yourself? And if you haven't got people to delegate to, then delegate it to systems and tools. And, I give practical examples, you know, in the book of like how you might want to do that.
[00:38:15] Nicole: Yeah. And you know, it's in chapter 16 where he talks about, figure out what apps you can use. Also talk about what processes you can put in and how you could batch things, and then decide what elements of your commitment inventory you could systemize. All right, so get that commitment inventory downloaded. That, I think, is going to be huge for you. And then, this one is our last letter in your trademarked _CRASH_ method: _hold_. Defer the activity to a future date. Like, do we need to get all this done right now, Richard?
[00:38:49] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. So this is my favorite, one of my bosses, in a previous job was, uh, brilliant at this. He would never say no to anything, which isn't a strategy I recommend. I think you should say no, but he would never say no, he would just say, well, not until this date. And generally, for the date he would give, would mean it basically was a no for most people because they couldn't wait that long.
[00:39:08] So in other words, you're saying, yeah, I'd love to do that but we, you know, we've got all these commitments and these deadlines. So we'd have to probably get to it in next quarter or whatever. Right. And that actually by itself was enough to kind of put people off as you say, and they found other ways to get their job done.
[00:39:21] But, yeah, a hold is a great strategy. It's almost if you're not quite ready to _cut,_ then you can say hey, I'm really busy right now, got some really key projects. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to skip your project review meeting until next quarter, right? Or I'm gonna have to send a delegate for the next few meetings. Or I'm afraid that we're not gonna be able to produce the monthly newsletter until Christmas, whatever it is. So just by offering it as a pilot or like a temporary thing, then you can actually realize, like does it actually matter? Actually once you've done it, it almost builds a bit of internal muscle and a bit of internal strength, you say you know what we didn't do the newsletter, nobody even noticed. So why are we doing that newsletter? Let's cut it And so suddenly you've made your life a bit simpler. So I think _hold_- I like to say that the tactics aren't quite as powerful as you go through the list of _CRASH._ You know they start with the most powerful fact to just cut it.
[00:40:14] Nicole: That's right. Get rid of it.
[00:40:15] Richard Medcalf: Hold isn't quite as powerful, but because you are kind of pushing into the future often, but it can give you some breathing space and it can also help you realize that some things aren't as important as you think they are.
[00:40:25] Nicole: Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. And we have spent about 40 minutes together going through Richard's book, Making Time for Strategy. We only got about halfway through, and you said something at the beginning of the podcast, and I'd kind of like to tie a bow on it right here. And then maybe you would come back and visit with us and do maybe the second half of the book sometime. We'll do a part two.
[00:40:45] But you said at the beginning, I help leaders become more strategic and magnetic. And if we step into the next parts of the book, we're going to move out of tactics into influence. I'm curious if there's a connection there, but why would leaders want to think about being strategic and magnetic? Will you kind of explain all that to us? Yeah.
[00:41:09] Richard Medcalf: Yeah, sure. So as I said, my mission is to help people create like 10x results, right, that really matter for themselves, for their team, their business...
[00:41:18] Nicole: For the country, for the world, for an issue.
[00:41:22] Richard Medcalf: So some of my clients, I have a group called Rivendell. This is like a bunch of industry-defining, industry-changing leaders, right? They're all on missions to really reshape their own industry, change the world in some key way. My one to one clients, right? They're generally CEOs, entrepreneurs or C-suite leaders. And again, they want to really create not just a slight increase but a big increase, a 10x shift in what they're operating, how they're leading. You can't create a 10x shift by 10x-ing like your budget. You know just like click your hands and it's there, right, or 10x-ing the team that you have overnight. Right? The resources you have don't tend to be 10xable overnight, right? They're an output. They're not an input in many ways, right? Once we've created the resources we can then reinvest those, of course. But where do you start right? Well you start with yourself. So my model, which I call the impact multipliers framework, is you've got yourself, you've got your team, you've got your business, right? So concentric circles, but within that there are four areas And my point is you can 10x any of these four areas. So the first one is you can 10x your commitment, the scope of your vision, being all in, the excitement about what you're trying to achieve, right? So this is your heart, right? It's like being in, so you can 10x the level of heart engagement about what you're doing.
[00:42:36] Nicole: Mm mm.
[00:42:37] Richard Medcalf: By having a purpose that is magnetic, and you can also 10x what I call your composure, which is actually enjoying the ride, not feeling all these big goals is like, Oh my God, this is so painful.
[00:42:49] Nicole: Right. It's so hard. Yes.
[00:42:51] Richard Medcalf: It's so hard and I'm grinding it now. And what if I succeed? It's going to be even more sacrifice. So actually composure for me is having that sense of joy and peace and fun that actually A) you want to be around yourself, B) other people want be around you, and C) actually you're excited to go after big goals, not because you have to, but because you get to.
[00:43:11] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.
[00:43:11] Richard Medcalf: So those two things, commitment and composure is kind of what I call being magnetic. And I see a lot of leaders who are very serious, they can deliver on goals, but they don't radiate that. They've suppressed it by being too serious and corporate. And actually when you tap into that, you can achieve new things. People want to be on your team. People want to...
[00:43:31] Nicole: help you!
[00:43:32] Richard Medcalf: Get on board. Yeah, your vision is exciting. Exactly. They want to help. And then the other two things you can 10x are you can 10x your attention.
[00:43:40] Nicole: Mm-Hmm
[00:43:41] Richard Medcalf: Right, the things that you're thinking about, the things that are going to move the needle. Rethinking where are you putting your focus? And that's really what we're talking about here is creating the time to do that. If you can't connect your attention It's going to be hard to even focus on what is that vision that really inspires me, right? How can I be more magnetic as a leader? And then the final one is action, which is really about the speed of learning, and of innovating on the things that matter. So attention is finding the things that matter. And then action is innovating rapidly and getting a result in that area.
[00:44:12] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.
[00:44:13] Richard Medcalf: And those two things, attention and action, are being more strategic. So this is my little framework. You've got these three circles. You've got these four areas. And my point is, when I'm with my clients, we kind of circle, we identify what's missing right now. What's the limiting factor? What's holding you back? So for many leaders, what I found was that the first thing was their attention, because they were all over the place, they had chaos in their diary. That's why I wrote the book.
[00:44:38] But if you step back, it might be that the thing you need to work on to start with is getting into a place where you're not actually just anxious and frustrated all the time and finding the whole thing a grind. Perhaps it's your composure we need to work on, or perhaps it's actually the scope of your vision that actually there's something which is so exciting to you that you leap out of bed in the morning. Right? This is why I have this strategic and magnetic framework. So the strategic is what people are used to often, it's the planning, it's the thinking, it's the doing. But the magnetic is the being,
[00:45:09] Nicole: Mm-Hmm.
[00:45:10] Richard Medcalf: It's who are we being as we're on this journey.
[00:45:13] Nicole: Yeah.
[00:45:14] Richard Medcalf: And for me, that's a game changer.
[00:45:16] Nicole: Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. So, "who we be" generates the amount of energy around us. I just totally believe that. Absolutely. Well, everybody, we have had a fantastic time with the amazing Richard Medcalf, and I am so grateful that you have been on the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast. We got about halfway through his amazing book. Everybody go out and get it, Making Time for Strategy and then get all the free downloads. It's mentioned in the book time and time and time again, so you can get all the things, get your homework done. And then maybe we'll have Richard back. Is there just one more little like nugget you might leave our leaders with that are listening, our HR directors that are listening in, what would you leave us with and how can we find you?
[00:45:56] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. So I think what I'd leave you with is, you're in the right place, right? Building a vibrant culture is like the ultimate part of this. It's how, when you create a culture which is strategic and magnetic, right? And it's going to start with you in your leadership, embodying that and showing it, and then scaling that across your organization.
[00:46:16] So do start in the inner circle and work out from there. And then if people want to get in touch with me, I'm on, you know, the usual places, LinkedIn, my website is xquadrant.com. What I'll say is, if you're here, I'll put a couple of bonuses, notably the link to some of the key resources for the book, the assessment to find out where your limiting factor is in this whole time model, right, where you need to focus on next. And if you just go to xquadrant.com/vibrant, then you can just get those there. So it should be easy for you to remember xquadrant.com/vibrant. And otherwise, yeah, find me on LinkedIn or whatever, give me a shout. I'm always happy to engage with people.
[00:46:52] Nicole: Okay. All right. That's fantastic. All right. Next time we get together, we'll wear our yellow blazers. We'll honor Freddie. It's been great to be with you, Richard.
[00:47:01] Richard Medcalf: Yeah. Thank you. Goodbye. Bye.
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