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Rethink Culture is the podcast that shines the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture. Virtually all of the business leaders who make headlines today do so because of their company performance. Yet, the people and the culture of a company is at least as important as its performance. It's time that we shine the spotlight on the leaders who are rethinking workplace culture and are putting people and culture at the forefront.
[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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