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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 - 00:00:10.13] Good morning, good afternoon and good evening.
[00:00:11.04 - 00:00:14.16] Welcome to Rethink Culture, the podcast that shines a spotlight on leaders of
[00:00:14.16 - 00:00:17.21] businesses that people love to work for.
[00:00:17.22 - 00:00:20.18] My name is Andreas Konstantinou and I'm your host.
[00:00:20.19 - 00:00:24.16] I'm the founder of Rethink Culture, a company that helps businesses create
[00:00:24.16 - 00:00:29.01] happier, healthier workplace cultures by auditing their culture.
[00:00:29.10 - 00:00:35.09] Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Nathan Donaldson all the way from New
[00:00:35.10 - 00:00:36.07] Zealand.
[00:00:36.13 - 00:00:38.21] He's the CEO and founder of Boost.
[00:00:38.22 - 00:00:42.06] Boost is a custom software agency for government.
[00:00:42.07 - 00:00:49.16] He's also the author of a very nicely titled book, Unicorns Over Rainbows, which
[00:00:49.16 - 00:00:55.06] is a book about making lasting, meaningful changes to your organization.
[00:00:55.07 - 00:01:00.08] He's a winner of a lifetime achievement award for democracy in the workplace
[00:01:00.08 - 00:01:01.22] from WorldBlu.
[00:01:01.22 - 00:01:05.01] He's a designer at heart, loves to solve hard problems.
[00:01:05.07 - 00:01:09.06] He also loves computer game racing, he tells me.
[00:01:09.07 - 00:01:14.22] And of course, being in New Zealand, all about outdoors, mountain biking, surfing,
[00:01:14.22 - 00:01:16.19] snowboarding and everything else.
[00:01:16.19 - 00:01:19.21] So very welcome to the Rethink Culture podcast, Nathan.
[00:01:19.22 - 00:01:20.23] Really pleased to have you here.
[00:01:20.23 - 00:01:23.10] Thanks very much Andreas, very pleased to be here.
[00:01:23.17 - 00:01:31.02] So, as we get started, tell us a bit about what is Boost and what makes Boost special
[00:01:31.02 - 00:01:32.17] in terms of its culture.
[00:01:33.01 - 00:01:34.01] Sure.
[00:01:34.01 - 00:01:37.02] So Boost, as you mentioned, is a software company.
[00:01:37.02 - 00:01:40.19] We make custom or bespoke software for government departments.
[00:01:40.19 - 00:01:41.18] We're quite small.
[00:01:41.19 - 00:01:44.22] There's about 25 to 30 of us.
[00:01:44.22 - 00:01:52.22] And I think what is unique is, well, not unique, what's uncommon is that we don't
[00:01:52.22 - 00:01:56.15] have any hierarchical structures built into the business.
[00:01:56.16 - 00:01:59.16] So we don't have any managers, line managers.
[00:02:00.10 - 00:02:02.04] Everybody has a coach.
[00:02:02.13 - 00:02:08.05] So, and I think it's really easy sometimes to say there's no managers in this
[00:02:08.05 - 00:02:09.05] business.
[00:02:09.05 - 00:02:14.03] And then when you start to dig down, you find that there's all sorts of management
[00:02:14.04 - 00:02:15.06] going on.
[00:02:15.07 - 00:02:20.04] But really what we have is a group of people who are able to manage themselves
[00:02:20.07 - 00:02:23.14] and have very high levels of responsibility.
[00:02:23.19 - 00:02:31.10] So when we use the Gallup or now Clifton's StrengthsFinder, and I would say 90 % of
[00:02:31.10 - 00:02:32.18] our team have
[00:02:32.19 - 00:02:35.19] Responsibility is one of their top 10 strengths.
[00:02:36.10 - 00:02:43.16] So they feel responsible to each other, to the client and to the wider organization.
[00:02:43.16 - 00:02:48.19] And they know how to make good decisions for themselves.
[00:02:50.23 - 00:02:57.20] The way we got here was really, it was really about standing on the shoulders of
[00:02:57.20 - 00:03:04.09] giants, reading the best books out there that describe the types of cultures that I
[00:03:04.10 - 00:03:06.07] really wanted to be a part of.
[00:03:06.07 - 00:03:10.11] So I'm thinking about a Richard Sheridan book, Joy Inc.
[00:03:10.11 - 00:03:13.23] Or Maverick by Ricardo Semler.
[00:03:13.23 - 00:03:19.06] And when I read those, they really sparked my imagination to think, well, what can
[00:03:19.07 - 00:03:20.17] the business be like?
[00:03:20.23 - 00:03:25.11] And often we've just copied stuff and then made it work for us.
[00:03:25.23 - 00:03:28.10] And always it's been a huge improvement.
[00:03:28.10 - 00:03:33.16] So as I look around the business today, everybody's managing themselves, but
[00:03:33.16 - 00:03:38.10] everybody has the support and the coaching to really be their best selves.
[00:03:38.10 - 00:03:41.12] We encourage people to bring their whole selves to work.
[00:03:41.13 - 00:03:45.17] And we involve the whole team in decision -making.
[00:03:46.23 - 00:03:51.05] Another thing that's a wee bit different about Boost is the way the leadership team
[00:03:51.05 - 00:03:52.13] is structured.
[00:03:53.01 - 00:03:57.20] So we don't describe ourselves as the leadership team.
[00:03:57.20 - 00:03:59.11] We're the navigators.
[00:03:59.11 - 00:04:04.05] Our job is to help chart the course that's going to get the company to the
[00:04:04.05 - 00:04:07.10] destination that we will want to get to.
[00:04:07.10 - 00:04:13.20] And that group is not made up of department heads or people who have been
[00:04:13.20 - 00:04:17.13] there the longest or... people on the highest salaries.
[00:04:17.13 - 00:04:20.17] It's taken from right across the business.
[00:04:20.17 - 00:04:27.12] And it's based on people's ability to move the business forward and their desire to
[00:04:27.13 - 00:04:31.22] provide a service to the rest of the organization and to other people.
[00:04:32.07 - 00:04:38.18] So at times we have invited people onto that Navigators team, the leadership team,
[00:04:38.19 - 00:04:42.20] when they've joined us, the office administrator, and they've been with us
[00:04:42.20 - 00:04:44.07] for two or three weeks.
[00:04:44.13 - 00:04:48.08] And you can just see they're exactly the right person to be leading the
[00:04:48.08 - 00:04:49.23] organization forward.
[00:04:50.04 - 00:04:57.10] So we always try to keep it at least 50 % female, the evidence that having more than
[00:04:57.10 - 00:05:02.01] 50 % female in teams makes better decision making is very, very strong.
[00:05:02.17 - 00:05:08.16] So in the age ranges in the leadership team at the moment, the navigators, goes
[00:05:08.16 - 00:05:12.20] from 24 through to medium to older 52.
[00:05:13.20 - 00:05:22.19] And so we've got currently three women, three men, people of diverse ethnic
[00:05:22.19 - 00:05:24.20] backgrounds, cultural backgrounds.
[00:05:25.10 - 00:05:31.05] And they're just committed to making the organization the best place to work
[00:05:31.05 - 00:05:35.04] possible while delivering the best results for our clients.
[00:05:35.16 - 00:05:42.17] So I always think it's really key that you can't be productive unless your team's
[00:05:42.17 - 00:05:43.08] happy.
[00:05:43.08 - 00:05:43.19] And...
[00:05:43.19 - 00:05:46.09] your team can't be happy unless they're productive.
[00:05:46.10 - 00:05:48.06] So it's not one or the other.
[00:05:48.07 - 00:05:51.09] It's not those surface feature type happiness things.
[00:05:51.10 - 00:05:55.07] It's not the foosball tables and the perks.
[00:05:55.07 - 00:06:00.04] It's that deeper happiness that comes from doing some meaningful work for people that
[00:06:00.04 - 00:06:04.06] you like and respect, working with people that you like and respect.
[00:06:04.07 - 00:06:09.04] So we're always trying to balance that, the needs of the collective against the
[00:06:09.04 - 00:06:10.20] needs of the individual.
[00:06:10.20 - 00:06:15.11] Keeping our mind on what the team needs, but also on what the organization and the
[00:06:15.11 - 00:06:16.16] clients need.
[00:06:17.13 - 00:06:21.01] The business is 24 years old this year.
[00:06:22.07 - 00:06:28.04] So our youngest member of our leadership team is almost exactly the same age as the
[00:06:28.04 - 00:06:29.07] business.
[00:06:29.07 - 00:06:35.20] So there's quite a few funny touch points that we miss out on together, which is
[00:06:35.20 - 00:06:36.16] fun.
[00:06:37.04 - 00:06:45.10] And, and, talking about government clients who are, of course, imagine extremely
[00:06:45.10 - 00:06:46.21] hierarchical.
[00:06:46.22 - 00:06:48.22] Does that create any tension?
[00:06:49.22 - 00:06:55.19] Is there any gap in expectations from your clients on how, you know, who should be
[00:06:55.19 - 00:06:59.09] signing off and having an official like head of procurement?
[00:06:59.10 - 00:07:03.22] And, you know, is there, how do you, what tension is there and how do you manage it?
[00:07:04.13 - 00:07:12.07] Yeah, that's a really good point because I suppose the way we look at it is that we
[00:07:12.07 - 00:07:16.23] have created the systems and processes for being able to deliver high quality
[00:07:16.23 - 00:07:21.10] software, high value quite quickly.
[00:07:21.10 - 00:07:26.19] And if our clients are unable to work in the way that we need to work, we can't
[00:07:26.19 - 00:07:27.23] deliver that.
[00:07:28.07 - 00:07:31.21] So when we're going through sort of procurement processes, we're being really
[00:07:31.22 - 00:07:33.07] careful to make sure that...
[00:07:33.07 - 00:07:36.22] the client's able to provide everything that we need to be successful.
[00:07:37.04 - 00:07:42.10] And that includes having a single person who can make the decisions on what we're
[00:07:42.10 - 00:07:46.23] doing and who is available at least 20 hours a week to the team.
[00:07:46.23 - 00:07:53.10] So our strong preference is to have our clients in constant contact with the team,
[00:07:53.10 - 00:07:59.08] so working in the team, because that's the main limiting factor for productivity is
[00:07:59.08 - 00:08:02.11] access to that person who can make decisions.
[00:08:02.17 - 00:08:07.22] The downside of this is that our addressable market is quite small.
[00:08:07.22 - 00:08:13.21] So we just can't work for everyone because we have a way to be successful and we
[00:08:13.22 - 00:08:15.13] don't know any other way to be successful.
[00:08:15.13 - 00:08:19.13] So if we can't work that way, we just don't take on the work.
[00:08:19.23 - 00:08:26.01] So we get a new client every three to four years.
[00:08:26.04 - 00:08:30.07] Yeah, which is a terrible sales cycle.
[00:08:30.13 - 00:08:34.21] But we build very long lasting trusting relationships with those clients.
[00:08:34.22 - 00:08:39.20] So our longest project's been going continuously for over 15 years.
[00:08:40.02 - 00:08:42.19] So we're an agile software development company.
[00:08:42.19 - 00:08:44.12] We work in two weeks' sprints.
[00:08:44.13 - 00:08:49.00] And that project's been running two weeks' sprints every two weeks, apart from
[00:08:49.01 - 00:08:51.05] Christmas, for the last 15.
[00:08:51.12 - 00:08:52.00] Amazing.
[00:08:52.00 - 00:08:55.17] And what got you to this journey?
[00:08:55.17 - 00:08:59.10] What was your thought process?
[00:08:59.11 - 00:09:04.17] Why did you want to build a company with no managers?
[00:09:05.02 - 00:09:09.02] It's a very unusual, as you said, uncommon setup.
[00:09:09.11 - 00:09:14.12] And what do you think in the way you grew up?
[00:09:14.18 - 00:09:23.14] And your world view as a younger person, as a younger Nathan, what influenced you
[00:09:23.14 - 00:09:24.13] to go that way?
[00:09:24.14 - 00:09:26.15] That's a really interesting question.
[00:09:27.03 - 00:09:34.01] So I think the first time I started to become politically aware, I was seven or
[00:09:34.02 - 00:09:34.23] eight.
[00:09:35.02 - 00:09:40.07] So in the town where I'm living now, where I grew up, Dunedin, at the bottom of New
[00:09:40.08 - 00:09:42.12] Zealand, we have a beautiful harbor.
[00:09:42.12 - 00:09:47.18] And at the head of the harbor, there's a wetland on one side and a royal albatross
[00:09:47.18 - 00:09:48.22] colony on the other.
[00:09:48.23 - 00:09:52.08] So it's the only southern royal albatross
[00:09:52.11 - 00:09:55.05] colony on a mainland in the world.
[00:09:55.20 - 00:10:00.20] And when I was seven or eight, the government wanted to put an aluminium
[00:10:00.20 - 00:10:04.05] smelter on the wetland at the head of the harbour.
[00:10:04.23 - 00:10:09.00] And it divided the town.
[00:10:09.00 - 00:10:10.05] So it's quite a small town.
[00:10:10.05 - 00:10:15.18] It would have been about 80,000 people then, but it absolutely divided the town.
[00:10:16.05 - 00:10:21.00] And I found myself on one side of the argument against the smelter.
[00:10:21.00 - 00:10:24.05] With my parents quite firmly on the other side.
[00:10:24.05 - 00:10:30.02] And that was the start of political and social justice arguments that continue
[00:10:30.02 - 00:10:31.23] with my parents to this day.
[00:10:31.23 - 00:10:38.17] So I've never really felt a strong drive to agree for the sake of sort of social
[00:10:38.17 - 00:10:39.15] harmony.
[00:10:39.15 - 00:10:45.13] I've always liked to think about things from a relatively, I hope, long -term
[00:10:45.14 - 00:10:48.03] perspective and form my own opinions.
[00:10:49.02 - 00:10:52.05] Which made being a teenager a bit tough.
[00:10:53.14 - 00:11:02.00] So that was the kind of start of, I suppose, my critical thinking journey,
[00:11:02.00 - 00:11:05.00] like thinking independently, making decisions for myself.
[00:11:06.15 - 00:11:12.03] The journey into business, I'd never really aspired to being a business person.
[00:11:12.14 - 00:11:18.20] What I'd aspire to do was to make change in the world and to do really good work.
[00:11:19.02 - 00:11:24.02] And when I was at university, the internet was just coming of age.
[00:11:24.02 - 00:11:32.18] So I was at university from 1990 onwards and the university in Dunedin had just got
[00:11:32.18 - 00:11:34.01] internet.
[00:11:34.02 - 00:11:34.23] And so...
[00:11:35.02 - 00:11:37.23] For those old enough to remember, we didn't have the World Wide Web at that
[00:11:37.23 - 00:11:38.22] stage.
[00:11:38.23 - 00:11:44.09] It started kind of a year or two later, but we had Gopher and Usenet and FTP
[00:11:44.09 - 00:11:45.09] servers and stuff.
[00:11:45.09 - 00:11:49.09] And I was fascinated by that access to information and that drove me to look for
[00:11:49.09 - 00:11:55.06] a job where I could start to interact with that sort of large network of the
[00:11:55.06 - 00:11:56.02] internet.
[00:11:58.15 - 00:12:04.15] I worked a few places, I did some teaching and I ended up in Wellington in our
[00:12:04.15 - 00:12:10.20] capital city and decided to start a company with a friend because I could see
[00:12:10.20 - 00:12:17.21] so much opportunity to do things better, but with a deeper understanding and
[00:12:18.00 - 00:12:20.11] deliver better results for people.
[00:12:20.17 - 00:12:27.00] And I wanted to start a company to do that work and I never really engaged with the
[00:12:27.00 - 00:12:28.11] business side of it.
[00:12:28.15 - 00:12:30.23] Until I was maybe three or four years in.
[00:12:30.23 - 00:12:38.18] And I started to realize that running a business actually threw up many more
[00:12:38.18 - 00:12:42.17] intellectual challenges for me than doing the software development work.
[00:12:43.05 - 00:12:48.21] By that stage, I've been doing the software development stuff for 10, 12
[00:12:48.21 - 00:12:49.23] years.
[00:12:50.11 - 00:12:56.00] And I started to realize that the complexity and subtlety of working with
[00:12:56.00 - 00:12:58.00] people running a business.
[00:12:58.00 - 00:13:01.00] Was actually incredibly intellectually stimulating.
[00:13:01.05 - 00:13:04.09] And I started to think about what that might look like.
[00:13:05.17 - 00:13:09.21] After six years, I bought out my business partner I'd started with and it was just
[00:13:09.21 - 00:13:10.20] myself.
[00:13:10.20 - 00:13:14.14] And that was one of the things that gave me the opportunity to really start
[00:13:14.14 - 00:13:15.16] experimenting.
[00:13:15.17 - 00:13:19.16] So, we were 50 -50 shareholders and we worked really well together.
[00:13:19.17 - 00:13:25.21] But once I owned the whole business, it was really my playground to try new ideas
[00:13:25.21 - 00:13:27.22] and to try things into.
[00:13:27.23 - 00:13:32.00] To see what effect I could have on the outcomes.
[00:13:32.14 - 00:13:36.13] But at that stage, I still really hadn't engaged with sort of business thought at
[00:13:36.13 - 00:13:36.20] all.
[00:13:36.20 - 00:13:41.09] I still sort of saw business as a bit of a dirty word, I suppose.
[00:13:41.09 - 00:13:44.14] You know, I didn't see it as caring, humanistic.
[00:13:44.14 - 00:13:46.02] I saw it as one -dimensional.
[00:13:46.02 - 00:13:53.09] And I didn't aspire to be, you know, an old white guy in a suit standing at the
[00:13:53.09 - 00:13:56.00] front of a company barking orders at people.
[00:13:57.17 - 00:14:04.03] So ironically now I'm an old white guy with long hair sitting at the back of the
[00:14:04.03 - 00:14:06.17] room being unhelpful.
[00:14:07.11 - 00:14:13.02] So I was trying to make it work but without really engaging with the ideas of
[00:14:13.02 - 00:14:14.05] business.
[00:14:14.05 - 00:14:19.06] And then one day we had a call from our largest client who said the work's
[00:14:19.06 - 00:14:21.02] stopping, essentially.
[00:14:21.06 - 00:14:25.20] We're going from being sort of a very large percentage of your -
[00:14:25.20 - 00:14:26.20] of your work to
[00:14:26.20 - 00:14:30.08] I can keep one person on this project to keep the lights on and I'm going to go out
[00:14:30.08 - 00:14:31.13] and try and find some more work.
[00:14:31.14 - 00:14:35.16] And so the next day I had to come to work, I had to make five people
[00:14:35.17 - 00:14:36.17] redundant.
[00:14:36.23 - 00:14:40.05] I had to talk to the team about what was going on.
[00:14:42.20 - 00:14:48.07] And it was, my wife still refers to it as the personal financial crisis.
[00:14:48.08 - 00:14:52.09] So it was during the GFC, the global financial crisis that we were doing our
[00:14:52.09 - 00:14:54.14] own personal financial crisis.
[00:14:56.03 - 00:14:59.11] And it was traumatic.
[00:15:00.09 - 00:15:05.08] I'd gone from having a business that the money just seemed to come in.
[00:15:05.17 - 00:15:09.09] The team judged how well we were doing by how many packages were sent up from my
[00:15:09.09 - 00:15:11.17] desk, the things I was buying online.
[00:15:12.05 - 00:15:17.03] And then all of a sudden, it was struggling to find money to pay wages.
[00:15:17.08 - 00:15:20.03] Struggling to see more than a month out.
[00:15:20.14 - 00:15:24.00] And it really woke me up.
[00:15:24.00 - 00:15:28.22] To the realization that I was just a huge bottleneck in the business.
[00:15:28.23 - 00:15:34.19] That I was the only person I could change and that my lack of knowledge, skills and
[00:15:34.20 - 00:15:39.21] understanding and leadership and business was just a huge risk to the business.
[00:15:39.21 - 00:15:46.02] And I had failed everybody around me, which that just really sucked as well that
[00:15:46.02 - 00:15:50.12] I had aspired to be a good leader, but I really not delivered on it.
[00:15:51.00 - 00:15:54.06] So I started to read books.
[00:15:54.17 - 00:16:00.12] I started to get coaches and I joined a couple of organizations that were really
[00:16:00.12 - 00:16:01.14] formative.
[00:16:01.17 - 00:16:07.19] So first I joined WorldBlu, worked with Traci at WorldBlu.
[00:16:07.20 - 00:16:12.03] She coached me for three or four years through some particularly tough stuff.
[00:16:12.23 - 00:16:19.09] And then I joined EO, the Entrepreneur's Organization around...
[00:16:20.03 - 00:16:22.20] So I joined EO about the same time...
[00:16:22.20 - 00:16:24.17] this all kicked off, actually.
[00:16:24.17 - 00:16:29.14] I started to look at EO for the idea of having some support in the business.
[00:16:29.14 - 00:16:36.10] But really, once this crisis occurred and I realized I needed to really level up, EO
[00:16:36.11 - 00:16:43.04] became a great support, largely in terms of exposing me to some amazing people,
[00:16:43.05 - 00:16:49.05] amazing ideas, and just lists and lists of books to go away and read.
[00:16:49.05 - 00:16:50.23] And so that's what I did.
[00:16:51.17 - 00:16:58.02] And in those first few years, I struggled to find a model that worked for me.
[00:16:58.02 - 00:17:02.10] So I was looking around at the business world around me and...
[00:17:02.11 - 00:17:08.08] And I was trying to discern what's the best model, what's the most successful
[00:17:08.08 - 00:17:10.20] model for building the type of business that I want to build.
[00:17:10.20 - 00:17:14.12] And so, you know, the thing that was most obvious was sort of that corporate
[00:17:14.12 - 00:17:16.02] hierarchical model.
[00:17:16.06 - 00:17:19.23] And so, you know, we started doing 360 reviews and I started trying to put in
[00:17:19.23 - 00:17:21.17] hierarchical systems.
[00:17:22.05 - 00:17:23.01] And...
[00:17:23.14 - 00:17:27.23] Even though the culture we had then isn't like the culture we had now, it was still
[00:17:27.23 - 00:17:34.11] really a reflection of who I was, which is someone who was anti -authoritarian,
[00:17:34.17 - 00:17:39.17] didn't like to do things the way other people did, just for the pure reason of
[00:17:39.17 - 00:17:40.17] doing that.
[00:17:40.17 - 00:17:42.03] And so it was never going to work.
[00:17:42.03 - 00:17:44.10] And of course it didn't.
[00:17:44.11 - 00:17:49.21] And so it wasn't until I was reading books like Maverick by Ricardo Semler, that was
[00:17:49.21 - 00:17:51.22] absolutely seminal for me.
[00:17:51.23 - 00:17:53.15] Just that.
[00:17:53.20 - 00:18:00.21] I remember it being so eye -opening that he could do things that were the right
[00:18:01.02 - 00:18:04.08] thing to do for people and they were successful.
[00:18:04.11 - 00:18:08.01] And that was just so exciting.
[00:18:08.02 - 00:18:13.00] And then, you know, going on to read other books and meet other people, Richard
[00:18:13.00 - 00:18:16.09] Sheridan at Menlo Innovations who wrote Joy Inc.
[00:18:16.12 - 00:18:19.05] Take an incredible amount from him.
[00:18:19.15 - 00:18:22.06] And really what we started to do was just...
[00:18:22.06 - 00:18:27.16] implement one thing after another, one small change, get that embedded and
[00:18:27.17 - 00:18:29.20] working and then try the next thing.
[00:18:29.23 - 00:18:36.19] And I always think you've kind of got two options in the life you lead, whether it
[00:18:36.20 - 00:18:38.07] be your personal life or your business life.
[00:18:38.08 - 00:18:43.11] You can be intentional or you can just be ad hoc.
[00:18:43.11 - 00:18:47.20] And I'd rather be intentional and get it wrong, but at least I knew what I was
[00:18:47.20 - 00:18:48.21] trying to achieve.
[00:18:48.21 - 00:18:51.07] And then I can reset course and try again.
[00:18:51.08 - 00:18:54.05] Than just to let things happen to me and just to see what evolved.
[00:18:54.05 - 00:18:59.21] And so I began to take a really intentional view of designing the
[00:18:59.21 - 00:19:01.02] business.
[00:19:01.11 - 00:19:04.08] So, and it's taken a long time.
[00:19:04.08 - 00:19:10.15] You know, we're just a small business, but I think, you know, the joke we have at
[00:19:10.15 - 00:19:13.22] work is that I come up with an idea and then three years later, the team decides
[00:19:13.23 - 00:19:16.08] that it's a good idea and starts to implement it.
[00:19:16.08 - 00:19:18.06] So pretty much.
[00:19:18.06 - 00:19:21.11] Everything's on a three year delay cycle for us.
[00:19:22.02 - 00:19:26.05] That's because the organization is not ready to adopt it?
[00:19:26.05 - 00:19:28.12] Or because they're challenging your own views?
[00:19:28.12 - 00:19:29.06] Why is that?
[00:19:29.07 - 00:19:31.21] I think there's a couple of things. In the early days
[00:19:31.21 - 00:19:38.11] it was because I had way too many ideas, way too poorly thought through.
[00:19:38.18 - 00:19:43.21] I would move to a new idea before I'd even finished half implementing the first one.
[00:19:43.21 - 00:19:49.08] And so the fatigue of that pressure that I put on the team of, you know, just idea
[00:19:49.08 - 00:19:50.23] after idea after idea.
[00:19:50.23 - 00:19:55.10] And, you know, they just, I think, got to the point where it was like, Nathan's been
[00:19:55.10 - 00:19:56.18] to a conference.
[00:19:56.18 - 00:19:58.21] He's going to come back with lots of ideas.
[00:19:58.22 - 00:20:02.08] Let's just like nod and smile for a while and hope he forgets about it.
[00:20:02.08 - 00:20:03.22] That was kind of the vibe.
[00:20:03.22 - 00:20:11.23] And then over the years as I've kind of, I hope got a bit more wisdom and slowed
[00:20:11.23 - 00:20:22.19] stuff down, listened more, said less, the team have started to be interested in my
[00:20:22.19 - 00:20:25.21] ideas, but also...
[00:20:25.21 - 00:20:28.12] I've started to have far fewer ideas.
[00:20:28.12 - 00:20:36.09] So now I think what tends to happen is if I notice something or an opportunity, it
[00:20:36.09 - 00:20:39.06] becomes the start of a conversation.
[00:20:40.07 - 00:20:41.08] Look, I've noticed this.
[00:20:41.08 - 00:20:43.04] Is this something that you think we can do better?
[00:20:43.04 - 00:20:46.16] What do you guys think might be something we could try?
[00:20:46.16 - 00:20:53.22] So realizing that I didn't have to have all the ideas and that...
[00:20:53.22 - 00:20:56.22] Frankly, some of my ideas were terrible.
[00:20:58.09 - 00:21:01.18] Bringing a bit of humility to the table really helped, I think.
[00:21:02.11 - 00:21:05.22] Yeah, I can totally empathize with that.
[00:21:05.23 - 00:21:11.11] My team used to also say, Andreas has read another book.
[00:21:12.05 - 00:21:15.01] And there were a few ideas on the table.
[00:21:15.02 - 00:21:18.05] And of course, I would forget them a month or two later.
[00:21:18.05 - 00:21:23.11] And then maybe six months later, I would come back and say, what happened to that?
[00:21:24.03 - 00:21:25.19] As if, you know,
[00:21:25.20 - 00:21:30.07] somebody should have taken my brain dumb at the moment and executed it because it
[00:21:30.08 - 00:21:31.16] was the best thing.
[00:21:31.17 - 00:21:39.08] Of course it wasn't and I also realized I was coming into meetings and voicing those
[00:21:39.08 - 00:21:44.21] ideas and then people over, you know, the course of the meeting were shooting some
[00:21:44.21 - 00:21:50.23] of them down and then I decided maybe I should be the last one to speak because
[00:21:51.02 - 00:21:54.11] the people working here are far smarter than me.
[00:21:56.00 - 00:22:02.00] And I think there's entrepreneurs, we have very similar traits.
[00:22:02.00 - 00:22:06.08] I think a lot of us have attention deficit, I certainly have it.
[00:22:06.08 - 00:22:09.15] And having lots of ideas, I think is a hallmark of that.
[00:22:09.15 - 00:22:16.18] And like being creative and throwing in the next silver bullet that's gonna change
[00:22:16.18 - 00:22:17.17] the world.
[00:22:19.23 - 00:22:22.23] Which leads me to...
[00:22:22.23 - 00:22:27.22] Something else we were discussing before the show and coming to your book, it's a
[00:22:27.23 - 00:22:31.02] nice segue to your book, which is Unicorns Over Rainbows.
[00:22:31.05 - 00:22:35.03] And in your book, you talk about small changes.
[00:22:35.03 - 00:22:40.01] So not these big ideas that are going to change the world, but small changes done,
[00:22:40.02 - 00:22:45.08] I think, which the word percolate comes to mind.
[00:22:45.08 - 00:22:51.21] So small ideas that percolate or simmer or marinate slowly and have lasting changes
[00:22:51.21 - 00:22:53.01] to the culture.
[00:22:53.02 - 00:22:57.14] So tell us more about that good small change framework.
[00:22:57.14 - 00:23:04.00] Yeah, so the way the Good Small Change framework came about was I've got so much
[00:23:04.00 - 00:23:05.15] from so many people.
[00:23:05.15 - 00:23:11.07] So, you know, Patrick Lencioni, Ricardo Semler, you know, all of their books have
[00:23:11.08 - 00:23:13.20] been so impactful for me.
[00:23:13.20 - 00:23:20.03] And I wanted to give something back to the business community.
[00:23:20.18 - 00:23:27.00] But when I sat down to look at what we'd done in the business and I with my
[00:23:27.00 - 00:23:30.12] my leadership team, I wrote a list of all the things that we'd done.
[00:23:30.12 - 00:23:33.23] And so it was, you know, all sorts of changes.
[00:23:33.23 - 00:23:37.13] There was some of it was process, some of it was frameworks, but there was a lot of
[00:23:37.14 - 00:23:39.21] thinking tools and ideas in there as well.
[00:23:39.21 - 00:23:44.08] We ended up with a list of somewhere between 45 and 50 different changes we'd
[00:23:44.08 - 00:23:45.08] made.
[00:23:45.11 - 00:23:50.03] And as we went through each one of them, I realized that all come from somewhere
[00:23:50.03 - 00:23:51.01] else.
[00:23:51.02 - 00:23:54.21] So, you know, this one was from this book, this one was from the seminar.
[00:23:54.21 - 00:23:56.14] And I sat there.
[00:23:57.02 - 00:23:58.11] What's an example?
[00:24:00.00 - 00:24:05.17] The ideal team player, which is from one of Patrick Lencioni's books.
[00:24:05.17 - 00:24:10.14] He has a really nice model for identifying people who are going to work well in a
[00:24:10.14 - 00:24:11.15] collaborative culture.
[00:24:11.15 - 00:24:15.12] So, looking for people who are humble, hungry and smart.
[00:24:15.20 - 00:24:19.14] So, a really simple idea, a really lovely book.
[00:24:21.08 - 00:24:26.05] Patrick's books have been the inspiration for how I wrote my book as well as...
[00:24:26.12 - 00:24:27.17] writing it.
[00:24:27.23 - 00:24:33.16] But so Humble Hungry Smart, the ideal team player would be a really good example.
[00:24:33.17 - 00:24:38.18] And as we went through this list, I got quite despondent.
[00:24:38.18 - 00:24:41.11] I was thinking, well, actually, I haven't done anything.
[00:24:41.11 - 00:24:44.12] There's nothing of value that I can share with the world.
[00:24:44.12 - 00:24:47.14] All I've done is taken other people's ideas.
[00:24:47.18 - 00:24:54.11] And it was that moment of voicing that self -doubt and
[00:24:54.14 - 00:25:02.17] and being vulnerable with my team, that they said, well, isn't what you've done
[00:25:02.17 - 00:25:04.13] implemented these changes well?
[00:25:04.14 - 00:25:09.19] You've been able to implement 45 to 50 changes over the last six years that have
[00:25:09.20 - 00:25:12.01] moved the business forward tremendously.
[00:25:12.02 - 00:25:14.23] Is that something that you could help people with?
[00:25:14.23 - 00:25:19.08] And as I started to think more and more about it, I thought about some of the
[00:25:19.08 - 00:25:24.00] people that I know who have struggled with this stuff and...
[00:25:24.11 - 00:25:27.18] They've read all the books, but they don't seem to be able to make any of the
[00:25:27.18 - 00:25:28.22] changes.
[00:25:28.23 - 00:25:35.19] And so I spent a couple of months with my team working backwards through discovering
[00:25:35.20 - 00:25:39.20] what the process was that we used to make change in the business.
[00:25:39.20 - 00:25:46.13] And I came up with a small framework, the Good Small Change Framework, which is,
[00:25:46.14 - 00:25:47.21] it's three parts.
[00:25:47.21 - 00:25:50.12] So a nice Venn diagram.
[00:25:50.12 - 00:25:53.17] You've got curiosity, accessibility, and safety.
[00:25:53.17 - 00:25:54.05] So.
[00:25:54.05 - 00:25:59.14] Curiosity, so you have to be curious, you have to inspire your team to be curious.
[00:25:59.14 - 00:26:04.10] Accessibility, the ideas have to be easy to understand and easy to transmit
[00:26:04.11 - 00:26:06.17] throughout the organization.
[00:26:06.23 - 00:26:10.21] And then safety, you have to create a safe to fail environment.
[00:26:11.14 - 00:26:15.10] Without a safe to fail environment, no one's going to take the risk to try and
[00:26:15.11 - 00:26:17.02] implement these ideas.
[00:26:17.20 - 00:26:22.01] And all of these things drive the change down to be smaller and smaller.
[00:26:22.02 - 00:26:24.08] So the smaller the change is,
[00:26:25.17 - 00:26:30.08] the safer the environment is to try them because if you can get the change small
[00:26:30.08 - 00:26:33.10] enough, then if it doesn't work, it just feels like learning.
[00:26:33.11 - 00:26:35.14] It doesn't feel catastrophic.
[00:26:35.20 - 00:26:39.17] If it's small enough, then you're not feeding the farm.
[00:26:39.17 - 00:26:42.21] You're not sitting in front of your team saying, if we don't make this change, the
[00:26:42.21 - 00:26:44.23] whole business is going to fail.
[00:26:45.06 - 00:26:48.01] Those things I've done just paralyze people.
[00:26:48.02 - 00:26:54.00] They're too scared to try because if they try and fail, then the business failing is
[00:26:54.00 - 00:26:54.23] on them.
[00:26:54.23 - 00:26:55.19] So...
[00:26:56.06 - 00:27:00.06] Safety drives the size of the change down.
[00:27:00.12 - 00:27:05.11] Accessibility, making the change easy to understand, also drives the size down.
[00:27:05.17 - 00:27:07.08] And curiosity.
[00:27:07.08 - 00:27:14.00] I think people are much more curious about what one small thing will do for the
[00:27:14.00 - 00:27:19.03] business than a large change that they just struggle to see their part in.
[00:27:20.15 - 00:27:24.08] There is kind of a fourth part that underlies the framework and that's
[00:27:24.08 - 00:27:25.07] empathy.
[00:27:25.08 - 00:27:27.15] None of this works without empathy.
[00:27:29.02 - 00:27:33.23] You have to be able to feel how your team's feeling about the change.
[00:27:34.15 - 00:27:40.19] For no other reason than to have the rate of change at the right and sustainable
[00:27:40.20 - 00:27:42.11] level for them.
[00:27:43.14 - 00:27:48.18] One of the stories that I tell in the book and when I'm unpacking the model, so the
[00:27:48.18 - 00:27:49.14] book has two parts.
[00:27:49.15 - 00:27:50.17] It's got a fable.
[00:27:50.17 - 00:27:54.11] At the start and then a description of the model.
[00:27:54.11 - 00:27:55.15] And the book's very small.
[00:27:55.15 - 00:27:58.07] I've noticed over the years that people really love getting small books.
[00:27:58.08 - 00:27:59.12] They don't like getting big books.
[00:27:59.12 - 00:28:02.22] So I always set out to write a small book.
[00:28:02.23 - 00:28:06.23] And so one of the stories I tell is about how I developed my empathy.
[00:28:07.23 - 00:28:12.17] As I was saying earlier, we used the Clifton Strengths Finder with our team.
[00:28:12.20 - 00:28:17.20] And when I originally did it, empathy was right down the bottom for me.
[00:28:17.20 - 00:28:21.08] So it was like... number 34 out of 34.
[00:28:22.03 - 00:28:27.00] You know, my empathy was so poor that my sister once told me that I was a cold,
[00:28:27.00 - 00:28:28.12] heartless robot.
[00:28:30.14 - 00:28:34.02] And my empathy was so poor that didn't even bother me at the time.
[00:28:34.15 - 00:28:40.06] But over the years, I realized that my lack of empathy was holding me back as a
[00:28:40.06 - 00:28:46.14] leader, like really holding me back, just catastrophically holding me back.
[00:28:46.14 - 00:28:47.02] And so...
[00:28:47.03 - 00:28:53.00] I worked really hard to improve my empathy and the way I did that was to bring people
[00:28:53.00 - 00:28:57.22] onto my leadership team, onto the navigators who were very, very empathetic
[00:28:57.23 - 00:29:04.19] and then just shutting up a lot more so that when something came up, letting them
[00:29:04.20 - 00:29:10.20] tell me how other people were feeling, letting them tell me what was going on and
[00:29:10.20 - 00:29:13.23] learning from them how to be empathetic.
[00:29:14.09 - 00:29:18.17] And over, so I originally took Clifton Strengths Finder 2016.
[00:29:18.17 - 00:29:24.09] I took it again in September last year and my empathy had gone from the bottom to
[00:29:24.09 - 00:29:25.14] number nine.
[00:29:25.14 - 00:29:28.02] So not quite the top, but I'll take it, you know.
[00:29:28.02 - 00:29:29.09] That is a huge change.
[00:29:29.09 - 00:29:34.09] Knowing the framework and having done it a few times myself, I know it's an enormous
[00:29:34.09 - 00:29:35.17] change.
[00:29:38.06 - 00:29:39.17] Yeah, go ahead.
[00:29:40.00 - 00:29:46.07] I wasn't really happy to just take the data because I think, there can be a feeling
[00:29:46.08 - 00:29:53.11] sometimes like, you know, as the numbers change, but is this reflected in who I am
[00:29:53.11 - 00:29:55.00] as a person to the people around me?
[00:29:55.00 - 00:29:58.23] And so the way I went and validated that was going out and talking to the people
[00:29:58.23 - 00:30:03.19] who'd worked with me for a long time and just asking them, you know, did they
[00:30:03.20 - 00:30:07.05] remember what it was like when they first started working with me?
[00:30:07.14 - 00:30:08.13] How have I changed?
[00:30:08.14 - 00:30:10.11] What's different now?
[00:30:10.11 - 00:30:16.03] And the number one thing that people said was that I was just way calmer.
[00:30:16.03 - 00:30:18.22] Like I just had a calmness that I'd never had before.
[00:30:18.23 - 00:30:25.09] Before I was frenetic and crazy and talking and no space for anyone else.
[00:30:25.09 - 00:30:30.12] And now what they have is this space that they can inhabit in the business that they
[00:30:30.12 - 00:30:36.18] can bring themselves to that I'm enabling, I think.
[00:30:37.06 - 00:30:38.17] Helping enable.
[00:30:38.20 - 00:30:41.03] And so they find me much more fun to work with.
[00:30:41.03 - 00:30:48.03] They find me much more thoughtful and that's why they've stayed in the business.
[00:30:48.20 - 00:30:52.14] So empathy sort of underlines the whole framework really.
[00:30:52.14 - 00:30:53.23] It's really important.
[00:30:53.23 - 00:30:59.16] And I think the reason I tell that story is because I certainly felt, you know, six
[00:30:59.17 - 00:31:03.14] or seven years ago that my empathy was where it was and that was it.
[00:31:03.14 - 00:31:05.07] And there was, you know, that's just...
[00:31:05.08 - 00:31:07.18] who I was and I didn't have an opportunity to change it.
[00:31:07.18 - 00:31:12.10] And I just want to share with people that, you know, if they do want to change it,
[00:31:12.11 - 00:31:17.09] and I highly recommend they do, that it's a journey worth going on and it does work.
[00:31:17.21 - 00:31:20.20] I can also relate to that.
[00:31:23.02 - 00:31:27.06] Years ago, I had done a very bad fire.
[00:31:29.14 - 00:31:38.23] It was someone who I knew wasn't growing with the business and wasn't a good fit to
[00:31:38.23 - 00:31:44.17] the values and the values were becoming much more clear.
[00:31:46.09 - 00:31:52.09] Crystal clear to me and I was seeing the discrepancy and so I knew that you know
[00:31:52.09 - 00:32:00.08] that person got us a long way but they weren't gonna you know take us beyond that
[00:32:01.08 - 00:32:08.01] what got you here won't get got you there like Marshall Marshall Gold Goldsmith is
[00:32:08.02 - 00:32:14.05] that name I forget so I was
[00:32:14.23 - 00:32:20.17] I couldn't face up to the truth, I couldn't have a difficult conversation
[00:32:20.17 - 00:32:21.23] with them.
[00:32:21.23 - 00:32:24.17] And I completely mishandled that fire.
[00:32:25.02 - 00:32:30.06] So, of course that person went later on and gave us a one -star rating on
[00:32:30.06 - 00:32:34.02] Glassdoor, which was like an alarm bell.
[00:32:34.02 - 00:32:40.11] And at that point I had also joined an entrepreneurs organization, EO, and was
[00:32:40.11 - 00:32:45.03] also started reading like you and becoming much more conscious about...
[00:32:45.20 - 00:32:49.09] systems and processes and how to properly run a business.
[00:32:50.20 - 00:32:59.05] And I almost maybe unawares went into a mission of improving the culture.
[00:32:59.05 - 00:33:06.03] And I also came from a state of a status of very low empathy.
[00:33:06.03 - 00:33:10.15] And I was, you know, the idea person coming up with framework after framework
[00:33:10.15 - 00:33:13.07] and thinking, we should do this and we should do that.
[00:33:15.11 - 00:33:23.23] And my HR person, Sarah, she was the counterbalance.
[00:33:23.23 - 00:33:25.20] She has extreme empathy.
[00:33:25.20 - 00:33:31.14] She's the, in a sense, the psychologist who's there to listen to people and really
[00:33:31.14 - 00:33:34.21] connect with them and understand how they feel and how these changes might affect
[00:33:34.21 - 00:33:35.11] them.
[00:33:35.11 - 00:33:38.02] So she was really pushing me back.
[00:33:38.02 - 00:33:41.23] And that helped me greatly in understand...
[00:33:41.23 - 00:33:48.04] how to marry these two elements, which is the engineering systems element, which is,
[00:33:48.05 - 00:33:54.08] you know, everything in boxes and everything in rhythms and everything kind
[00:33:54.08 - 00:33:58.08] of in Venn diagrams, let's say.
[00:33:58.14 - 00:34:03.04] And then there's the empathy part, which is the messiness of how our brains work
[00:34:03.05 - 00:34:09.11] and how we are imperfect, but also perfect in our imperfections.
[00:34:09.20 - 00:34:20.11] And how a what seems like a logical performance review scheme or an incentive
[00:34:20.11 - 00:34:24.11] scheme or a bonus scheme or whatever might very easily backfire if you really
[00:34:24.11 - 00:34:28.19] understand how people feel and how they would welcome or not welcome that change.
[00:34:28.20 - 00:34:32.02] So for me, you know, I learned think...
[00:34:32.05 - 00:34:38.16] Thanks to Sarah, the partner that I had, that we went through this journey together
[00:34:38.17 - 00:34:39.15] in improving culture.
[00:34:39.15 - 00:34:44.03] And over time we got it to 4.6 stars, which has been for a few years now.
[00:34:46.06 - 00:34:55.00] I wasn't brave enough to take it further and actually only started reading about
[00:34:55.00 - 00:34:57.17] self -managed organizations.
[00:34:57.17 - 00:35:01.02] After having transitioned the business to another CEO.
[00:35:01.02 - 00:35:03.22] And so now, you know, I don't run the business.
[00:35:03.23 - 00:35:11.14] I just help her be the best CEO she can be and keep my ideas to myself about
[00:35:11.14 - 00:35:13.08] progressive cultures.
[00:35:15.02 - 00:35:17.23] So back to you, Nathan.
[00:35:20.12 - 00:35:31.23] What's one of the hard things in running a self -managed business that challenged
[00:35:32.14 - 00:35:33.09] you?
[00:35:33.15 - 00:35:35.17] That's a really good question.
[00:35:36.08 - 00:35:37.03] I think.
[00:35:37.04 - 00:35:42.23] Trying to balance the needs of the business, my personal needs as the owner
[00:35:42.23 - 00:35:45.06] of the business and the needs of the people.
[00:35:45.17 - 00:35:49.22] And finding that balance in a way that's fair.
[00:35:49.23 - 00:35:54.17] I think it's a constant tightrope to walk.
[00:35:55.00 - 00:36:02.01] As I've stepped further and further back, purposely to create some spaces for other
[00:36:02.03 - 00:36:02.17] people to...
[00:36:02.18 - 00:36:07.20] step into, it can be quite easy to feel like you're not adding as much value to
[00:36:07.20 - 00:36:09.09] the business anymore.
[00:36:10.02 - 00:36:13.21] And for me, that can be quite hard.
[00:36:14.02 - 00:36:19.18] You know, the business still provides the livelihood for myself and my family, and I
[00:36:19.18 - 00:36:21.15] want to be delivering value.
[00:36:21.18 - 00:36:28.10] And so to sometimes be saying, no, I'm not going to do that because if I do that, no
[00:36:28.11 - 00:36:32.18] one else has got a chance to step up and leaving a gap.
[00:36:32.23 - 00:36:37.23] A very obvious gap in capability and capacity in the business and have that
[00:36:37.23 - 00:36:41.18] affect the business but force a change.
[00:36:41.18 - 00:36:48.12] I found that quite hard but time and time again it's been valuable.
[00:36:48.12 - 00:36:53.14] I would say as an example of that our sales process, our sales cycles are
[00:36:53.14 - 00:36:59.21] incredibly long and I stopped doing sales
[00:37:01.00 - 00:37:03.05] probably 12 years ago.
[00:37:03.12 - 00:37:12.09] And for businesses like ours, 25 to 30 people, it's a fairly contained market.
[00:37:12.09 - 00:37:16.06] The CEO or the founder is usually the best salesperson.
[00:37:16.14 - 00:37:19.17] It's just kind of how it is.
[00:37:19.17 - 00:37:25.09] And so my conscious decision not to do sales had a real impact on the business.
[00:37:25.09 - 00:37:30.14] But I knew that if I continued to do sales, there would be no way to build a...
[00:37:30.14 - 00:37:36.20] a highly effective sales team and especially a sales team that I, of the
[00:37:36.20 - 00:37:37.14] kind that I wanted.
[00:37:37.15 - 00:37:44.05] So I stepped out of sales and then it's taken more than 10 years to build an
[00:37:44.05 - 00:37:46.15] effective sales function in the business.
[00:37:47.02 - 00:37:52.17] And that's a long time to be, to have a key part of the business underperforming.
[00:37:52.23 - 00:37:55.14] It wasn't because of the people in the business.
[00:37:55.14 - 00:37:59.04] It was just, we just didn't, we just didn't know how to do it.
[00:37:59.05 - 00:38:00.00] You know.
[00:38:00.08 - 00:38:03.03] Yeah, I can relate to that too.
[00:38:03.18 - 00:38:13.14] I tried, I think, maybe three or four or five people to replace me as founder and
[00:38:13.14 - 00:38:21.20] effectively head of sales in maybe for a long time, historically.
[00:38:21.20 - 00:38:26.05] And I thought that sales is something you just hand over and the other person takes
[00:38:26.05 - 00:38:37.11] over and you know, they have this secret telepathy to me knowing exactly how I
[00:38:37.11 - 00:38:41.23] think about customers and sales and that they can just listen to a few words coming
[00:38:41.23 - 00:38:44.05] out of my mouth and pick it up.
[00:38:46.18 - 00:38:51.00] And that's why so many people failed because I was assuming too much, I was not
[00:38:51.00 - 00:38:52.10] guiding them.
[00:38:52.11 - 00:38:59.11] And eventually what did work was doing the hard work and documenting all the sales
[00:38:59.11 - 00:39:07.00] process and all the pricing and all the variants and products and customer
[00:39:07.00 - 00:39:15.02] personas and profiles and the scripts that you used to call and speak to clients and
[00:39:15.02 - 00:39:16.14] it's just process.
[00:39:17.00 - 00:39:23.16] And after a big part of that process was done, then the next person came in, who's
[00:39:23.17 - 00:39:27.17] now our CEO, she came from a sales team.
[00:39:29.08 - 00:39:35.20] And she really took over the sales team and did a very good job.
[00:39:37.09 - 00:39:43.02] So another question I wanted to ask you is,
[00:39:44.02 - 00:39:47.18] You also strike me as someone who's very calm and
[00:39:47.18 - 00:39:53.04] you know, you have this serenity to you, this stoicism.
[00:39:54.01 - 00:40:01.02] How does living in New Zealand, especially you live in a seaside town, right?
[00:40:02.16 - 00:40:10.06] How does that affect the culture you've built and how you see the world and how
[00:40:10.06 - 00:40:11.17] you see the person you want to be?
[00:40:11.18 - 00:40:13.13] Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:40:13.13 - 00:40:19.07] So I'm in Dunedin and this is where I was born and grew up.
[00:40:19.07 - 00:40:25.13] And Dunedin was settled by the Scottish largely, Scottish Presbyterians.
[00:40:26.09 - 00:40:27.05] And
[00:40:27.12 - 00:40:32.10] You know, Mark Twain visited Dunedin and he said the Scots were on their way to
[00:40:32.10 - 00:40:39.04] heaven and they came to Dunedin and they stopped and didn't go any further because
[00:40:39.04 - 00:40:41.04] they thought they'd found paradise.
[00:40:41.10 - 00:40:42.06] So.
[00:40:42.09 - 00:40:48.13] My whole childhood has been informed by the culture of the Scots.
[00:40:48.19 - 00:40:55.20] And my grandfather came from Glasgow during the Depression, just him and his
[00:40:56.19 - 00:40:57.21] sisters.
[00:40:58.12 - 00:41:03.09] My great grandparents came and farmed in New Zealand in the late 1800s.
[00:41:03.09 - 00:41:09.00] And this was a very tough, tough place to come.
[00:41:09.00 - 00:41:10.15] You know, the...
[00:41:11.00 - 00:41:18.00] They'd jump on a boat and it would be six weeks to three months to get to New
[00:41:18.01 - 00:41:18.18] Zealand.
[00:41:18.19 - 00:41:21.23] And they'd been sold New Zealand based on some paintings.
[00:41:22.00 - 00:41:25.15] And when they got here, it wasn't necessarily what was promised.
[00:41:26.15 - 00:41:32.06] But the Scottish sort of stoicism, you know, you just make it work.
[00:41:32.09 - 00:41:35.19] Yeah, there's not a lot of space in life for complaining.
[00:41:35.19 - 00:41:38.03] It's very egalitarian.
[00:41:38.09 - 00:41:40.00] So...
[00:41:40.06 - 00:41:42.12] no one's better than anyone else.
[00:41:44.10 - 00:41:51.11] You know, sometimes that the American sort of putting yourself out there and being
[00:41:53.09 - 00:41:58.18] confident, it's very antithetical to us over here.
[00:42:00.18 - 00:42:07.14] We're taught to keep our head down, be humble, and do the work.
[00:42:07.15 - 00:42:08.12] So, you know.
[00:42:08.12 - 00:42:11.00] You're valuable as long as you're working hard.
[00:42:11.00 - 00:42:12.07] That's what it's all about.
[00:42:12.07 - 00:42:13.15] It's how hard you work.
[00:42:15.06 - 00:42:22.07] But at the same time, there's a warmth down here and everybody's got time to
[00:42:23.12 - 00:42:24.10] chat.
[00:42:24.15 - 00:42:30.10] So the reason I came back to Dunedin, so we arrived back here four years ago after
[00:42:30.15 - 00:42:33.18] living overseas a wee bit and working in Wellington.
[00:42:34.01 - 00:42:38.08] And what I missed about Dunedin was that people just aren't really that into their
[00:42:38.09 - 00:42:39.12] jobs.
[00:42:40.00 - 00:42:45.11] Like work's important and they want to do a good job, but they never...
[00:42:45.12 - 00:42:48.11] are too busy to stop and have a 15 minute chat.
[00:42:48.12 - 00:42:50.02] It doesn't matter what they're doing.
[00:42:50.03 - 00:42:53.15] Like the guys who deliver the gas bottles, if you're out there, they'll stop for a
[00:42:53.15 - 00:42:54.09] chat.
[00:42:54.09 - 00:42:59.22] You know, if you're in a cafe and waitress is serving you and you strike up a
[00:42:59.22 - 00:43:01.14] conversation, they'll stop for a chat.
[00:43:01.15 - 00:43:07.21] And so that idea that, yeah, working was important and, you know, the Presbyterian
[00:43:07.21 - 00:43:11.07] work ethic or the Protestant work ethic is all about, you know, that's where your
[00:43:11.07 - 00:43:12.21] value comes from.
[00:43:12.21 - 00:43:15.16] But relationships are super important as well.
[00:43:17.00 - 00:43:19.22] And that's what I've taken through, I think, to the business.
[00:43:19.22 - 00:43:24.12] Our core focus is relationships, the relationships with each other, the
[00:43:24.12 - 00:43:26.10] relationships with our clients.
[00:43:26.10 - 00:43:30.10] And every decision we make is through the lens of how does this improve the
[00:43:30.10 - 00:43:31.15] relationship?
[00:43:32.15 - 00:43:39.15] The business itself is about 50 % people who were born in New Zealand and 50 % new
[00:43:40.12 - 00:43:41.19] New Zealanders.
[00:43:41.19 - 00:43:45.09] So, you know, looking around the room, there's...
[00:43:46.03 - 00:43:53.03] Lin's from Myanmar, Jang Yil's from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada,
[00:43:55.06 - 00:44:00.15] Clarissa's from the Philippines, Gus's from Brazil, and on and on.
[00:44:00.15 - 00:44:04.15] And so there's this international multicultural cast.
[00:44:05.12 - 00:44:11.16] But they all have one thing in common, and that is their ability to be warm with
[00:44:11.16 - 00:44:16.09] everybody, their ability to make people feel like they're the most
[00:44:17.04 - 00:44:24.03] important person in the room and how much value they derive from having high quality
[00:44:24.03 - 00:44:25.18] relationships in their life.
[00:44:27.09 - 00:44:32.07] So, you know, it's often not till you get quite a bit older that you're able to go
[00:44:32.07 - 00:44:35.19] back and pick out those threads from your childhood to see how they've informed you.
[00:44:35.19 - 00:44:38.15] And it's only in the last few years that I've really started to think about this
[00:44:38.15 - 00:44:39.12] stuff.
[00:44:39.18 - 00:44:45.06] I've always struggled with the Protestant work ethic of, you know, unless you're
[00:44:45.06 - 00:44:50.13] working like right at the moment, you're not doing anything valuable because I
[00:44:50.13 - 00:44:54.07] think so much of the value that I feel like I bring to an organization is
[00:44:54.07 - 00:44:55.07] thinking.
[00:44:55.10 - 00:45:00.16] And not even necessarily consciously thinking, maybe letting my unconscious
[00:45:00.16 - 00:45:03.21] mind dwell on some problems for a couple of weeks.
[00:45:04.06 - 00:45:10.19] And to the outside world, that can sometimes look like not doing very much at
[00:45:10.19 - 00:45:11.04] all.
[00:45:11.05 - 00:45:20.10] Yeah, I really value this relationships above or at least on an equal footing to
[00:45:20.10 - 00:45:24.11] work, to output to productivity that you say.
[00:45:24.12 - 00:45:26.02] It's in my mind
[00:45:26.03 - 00:45:36.00] an ethic that has been lost in the last few decades as we talk about productivity
[00:45:36.00 - 00:45:41.21] and doing more and technology and we can be, you know, much...
[00:45:42.13 - 00:45:49.06] faster, cheaper, better versions of our older selves and we forget that humanity,
[00:45:49.06 - 00:45:54.21] relationships, empathy, connection is what makes us human, it's not the work itself
[00:45:55.09 - 00:46:05.22] and it's what unites us and recently in EO I've heard this phrase connection before
[00:46:05.22 - 00:46:10.18] content so before you talk about...
[00:46:10.18 - 00:46:15.23] anything work related, you need to establish a basic connection within the
[00:46:16.00 - 00:46:17.15] people you're working with.
[00:46:18.13 - 00:46:25.01] And now when I go into a meeting and we start just talking about work, it seems so
[00:46:25.12 - 00:46:35.23] forceful and inauthentic and that, you know, we all have good days or bad days.
[00:46:36.09 - 00:46:37.21] But unless we...
[00:46:37.21 - 00:46:43.16] talk about a little bit about ourselves and how we are and how we're feeling at
[00:46:43.16 - 00:46:44.14] that moment.
[00:46:44.15 - 00:46:50.07] I think that the rest of the conversation is so dry and lacks meaning to a great
[00:46:50.07 - 00:46:51.09] extent.
[00:46:52.18 - 00:47:00.18] So with that, Nathan, I want to thank you for being part of this
[00:47:01.06 - 00:47:08.21] this podcast, I am humbly learning from you and learning from your stoicism and
[00:47:08.21 - 00:47:13.01] your balance between relationships and work and output.
[00:47:13.04 - 00:47:16.19] Is there somewhere where people can find out more about you?
[00:47:16.19 - 00:47:19.18] Again, your book is Unicorns Over Rainbows.
[00:47:20.00 - 00:47:21.18] I guess.
[00:47:22.07 - 00:47:25.01] Say this is what the book looks like.
[00:47:25.01 - 00:47:26.16] If you want to try and find it.
[00:47:26.16 - 00:47:30.20] It's of course, when you type unicorns over rainbows in Amazon, you get lots of
[00:47:30.21 - 00:47:32.16] kids picture books.
[00:47:32.16 - 00:47:35.03] It's not the world's best title.
[00:47:35.03 - 00:47:40.01] And I have a website, nathandonaldson.com.
[00:47:40.10 - 00:47:45.17] One thing people may notice is that I just don't really like to talk about myself
[00:47:45.18 - 00:47:46.09] very much.
[00:47:46.09 - 00:47:48.15] So the website's not really that great.
[00:47:48.18 - 00:47:50.11] In terms of finding out stuff.
[00:47:50.12 - 00:47:54.11] But I love talking to people and making connections.
[00:47:54.12 - 00:47:58.15] So I'd love for people to reach out to me, to have conversations.
[00:47:58.15 - 00:48:01.05] I love to jump on Zoom and talk.
[00:48:01.06 - 00:48:05.06] And isn't it amazing that you're in Athens, I'm in Dunedin, we're on
[00:48:05.06 - 00:48:09.14] completely the opposite sides of the world, and we're able to do this.
[00:48:09.15 - 00:48:16.21] And so I really want to make businesses better places for people to work in.
[00:48:16.21 - 00:48:19.01] So if you're someone who
[00:48:19.07 - 00:48:23.10] who's on that journey and wants to have a chat, then yeah, get in touch.
[00:48:23.10 - 00:48:29.06] Thank you Nathan, thank you for your generosity and being generous with your
[00:48:29.06 - 00:48:30.10] time as well.
[00:48:32.19 - 00:48:35.21] Thank you to all of those who listen to us.
[00:48:35.21 - 00:48:40.04] If you like the show, you can support us by telling your friends about it, or you
[00:48:40.04 - 00:48:42.18] can leave a comment in your favorite podcast app.
[00:48:42.18 - 00:48:46.05] You can also watch us if you're just listening to us right now.
[00:48:46.06 - 00:48:52.22] You can go to YouTube and the channel is {RethinkCulture.
[00:48:52.22 - 00:48:58.15] So youtube.com slash at sign rethink culture and keep, keep leading
[00:48:58.15 - 00:49:02.18] as I like to say, keep creating happier workplaces for you and for the
[00:49:02.18 - 00:49:03.16] those around you.
[00:49:03.16 - 00:49:04.16] Thank you.