Hello, everyone, and welcome to the
Operations Room, a podcast for CEOs.
I am Brandon Bensinger joined by my
lovely co as Bethany Iris.
How are things going?
Bethany Hey, I'm back to being
lovely.
I always notice which way the intro
is. Things are okay.
I am not the Christmas spirit.
Do you have a Christmas tree up yet?
Yes, we have a Christmas tree.
So I'm allergic to actual Christmas
trees. So whatever pine trees or
what have you. So we can actually
add them, which is a boon, to be
honest, because then I have to deal
with a buying one, be dealing
with all the pine needles everywhere
and so on. So we have a fake
tree, the same tree that goes up
every year. We actually just got our
I don't know what you call it.
They give it like this massive
bundle of all the crafts
that the kids have done over the
past three months.
So it is a huge batch of stuff.
We always wonder what to do with
these things, right? Like, this
thing. So you have to pass through
it, you know, what are the golden
nugget? So you want to save and then
the rest of it you have to obviously
put through recycling.
But you have to gently put it
through.
Are you to suddenly put it through
and nobody can discover,
but yet they will never remember it
again. So as long as you do it
without getting caught, it's
absolutely fine.
It just isn't feeling Christmasy
here. I don't quite know what I'm
taking time off work, so I feel like
I'm yeah, I'm just in this limbo
of work is really,
really, really busy.
And yet the sun came
up at 730 in the
morning. It goes down before
four.
My whole body wants to cuckoo.
And yet work is like the busiest
period of the year.
I always find this really difficult
and we still have about four
deals to sign that are going
to happen some time between now
and the 31st, which again
means that you can't entirely
breathe out.
And they're big enterprise deals.
They have been in close
plans since October
with everybody saying we want to
close before Christmas.
Everybody going 100%.
We're going to close before
Christmas. And then it just slips
and then it just seems a little bit
more. And this little list, the
31st.
That's a lot of pressure.
Yeah. And then
something I want to talk to you
about, Brandon, was our strategy
days.
We've done strategy in
October and we've done strategy
in January.
And this year, maybe because I
joined middle of September,
we've ended up pushing the strategy
date back to January again.
So not only was there board
meetings, budget planning,
end of year wrap up, I
also spent a lot of yesterday
thinking through our strategy
day and format and pre
reads and questions to cover
for when we
come back.
When do you do your strategy days
and how do you do your strategy days
or what way do you think works the
best?
I would say that I feel like the
December team
week, I think to me is the right
time generally to do the stuff
because you want a time period where
clearly there is time and space
to reflect on what has happened.
I mean, I think this whole
reflection on how is the year gone?
What does it look like?
How is it felt to us?
What results have we seen or not
seen? And the learning's taken away
from that very clearly is kind of
like a December mojo thing, I would
say. Your vibe in the stuffing, not
a vibe you're going to get in
January where it's like, go, go, go.
The second piece is the culture part
of it, which is I always used to
call this strategy day or strategy
days or strategy week or whatever.
And at some point somebody was
telling me like, Look, Brenton,
every day is Strategy Day.
Every day you should be thinking in
the back of your head around What
are we doing?
And it puts a lot of pressure on the
week itself as well to like somehow
deliver some transformative
new strategy or better strategy
or whatever you want to call it, I
guess.
So we ended up calling it Team week,
and Team Week is reflective of
the team itself, the reflection on
the year and the team thinking about
the year ahead of us.
It's interesting. I like that.
I agree in the
strategy is every day and
also so the new way
that we're meeting as an exact team
is we meet twice a week.
And at first I was like, my God,
that's a lot of meetings.
But actually it works really well
because we have two maximum
one hour meetings a week and I
say maximum because sometimes we're
done in 35 minutes
and other times we take the full
hour and the first
meeting of the week, we
do our AWB R so Weekly business
review and so
the we are has.
Forecast pipeline
escudos
cash collected,
which is mostly like a help needed
if somebody you know isn't.
We need to escalate that somebody is
not paying, that they're ignoring
us or whatever.
We have one of those the other week.
I don't know if I should be sharing
this or not, but I'm not sharing
names. We have one of the other
week. We just wasn't paying, wasn't
paying.
And there's escalated to me and I
was prepared for this really tough
conversation.
And I just said, so basically, let
me explain how we see it anyway,
okay, I guess we have to pay.
And then he paid.
It's like this conversation
I've ever had.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. So that was amazing.
Sometimes you just have to ask.
I was like pushing back to junior
people and I guess maybe just having
a senior person do it.
I honestly have no idea.
Or we had to explained it well.
Explain the invoice in a different
way.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Pretty much. That was. I was just
like, This is what you're paid,
this is what you need to pay.
And he went, okay,
So we talked about like cash
collection, monthly active
users or I guess weekly active users
of a couple of different products,
that kind of stuff.
And so we, we run through
it. Sometimes there's a
conversation, sometimes there's not
much of a conversation at all.
So it can be anything from
ten minutes to half an hour
depending on if something's
surfaced.
And then we bring up whatever other
topics we need.
And then we have a second meeting on
a Thursday where it
is whatever topics
we need to cover as a group.
But that will often,
if there aren't any, just like base
stuff, will just become
discussions over a topic that
somebody is thinking about.
And so we have like these kind of
like micro
strategy chats.
So we're working
through and untangling something on
a very regular basis, and that seems
to be working well
and not having it be as structured.
So generally I think you're on to
something here because I found a
similar strand eventually,
and it took me a while to realize
what was happening and why it was
happening, but very similar thing,
which is we had a structured
leadership meeting which was 90
minutes, which eventually turned
into a two hour block once a week
that we would have a two hour block
would be half kind of like
our stuff. So the key KPIs
of the business, making sure that
we're on that, tracking that
and accountable to that and looking
at the gaps, why they were happening
and kind of assigning out kind of
outcomes and next steps to solve
issues.
And then the second half, that
meeting was kind of a
cross-functional problem that we
were having where we had pre reads
coming into those meetings to
discuss a particular topic that was
well set up or structured in the
sense of here's the pre read, here's
what the issue is, here's a bunch of
the thoughts behind it.
Now collectively, let's get together
and have a structured conversation
as to how to get to know, cover
a set of next steps that can put
this problem to bed
so we never see it again
effectively.
So we would do this and it
kind of worked and it was kind of
okay. And at some
point I think the SEO founder
kicked off a different thing almost
in a way, like essentially getting
together for coffee.
And it wasn't the entire leadership
team, it was just the C-suite.
And at that point there was four of
us having this coffee and
completely unstructured, throwing
out thoughts and having ideas.
And the power of that conversation
ultimately, I think was better than
our structured meeting in terms of
the thoughts were having that were
much more organic, much more
creative, much more riffing.
I would say there's a different feel
to having a discussion where you're
kind of bouncing off each other,
where it's not geared up as like
this thing of like, okay, we have
a pre read and it's a big
conversation everyone's ready for.
I there's a bit of like defensive
posturing and
all that other stuff that comes with
structured meetings ultimately for
us and ultimately for the company.
That's where we passed it down to
eventually, which is, okay, let's
do our WB hours and
let's have this coffee chat and open
up to the rest of leadership as
well. I'll have this kind of like
wider discussion or that that is
more unstructured.
So I think eventually we found a
router, a route to kind of
what you're doing.
And what we've also done
to have this slightly more
structured conversations is we do
a MVR once
a month.
And how that works
is we have
a set of ready made
slides or, you know, like areas that
we look at. It's like basically
similar to what we share with the
board. So financial performance
forecast, pipeline
skills, actuals again, and then
the kind of the equivalent you can
see where my my spike is.
I like that's looking at where's the
money and are we getting more money?
But then we have similar ones for
for product and
people in engineering and then
we try and keep that to like
maximum 30 slides
so that it's really all that
actually matters
and it's pretty standard.
So because it's like I think
people forget that it's creating
slides is not only onerous
on the person creating them, but
it's onerous on the person who has
to read them. And so it's down to
the person creating them to make
sure that they're sharing the most
important information rather than
all the information.
And so it's actually hard to keep it
limited to what we need.
People tend to sneak in a little bit
more and then the feedback is it's
gotten to getting too long and it's
hurting my brain and then like strip
stuff out again. And then we have
in certain areas where we're
working through harder
problems, bits of analysis.
And so anyhow, I read
the whole deck ahead of time
and then think about
the themes, the topics
we need to resolve and
my analysis on it.
And so then the
agenda basically changes
every month.
We do like a very quick run through
of how's everybody's what do we
need to know about everybody's area?
And then we cover one, two, three
topics in detail
and I'll work through the data
and what other people have said and
the analysis that they've shared
come up with a framing.
And then we work it through.
And so that's almost like we're
dealing in a way, again, with some
of the strategy stuff monthly.
And then for this monthly review,
it's again with the leadership team
and the slide creation of who's
creating that is each the functional
leaders doing their pieces and then
passing that together or how does
that happen?
So some of it is like a large
chunk of it is.
And because it's the same stuff that
we're sending to the board.
And then there'll be the functional
leaders will
have maybe a little bit extra.
That isn't stuff that goes to the
board like monthly user
active users is not something that
the board is caring about.
I think that's a fantastic idea
because you're doing two things
quite usefully actually, which is
every single month you're on a
pathway to the quarters review
with the board in very similar
format. So you are as a leadership
team being accountable and tracking
to the progression of the company in
the same kind of progression that
the board is going to want to see at
the end of the quarter.
So by the time you get to the end of
that quarter, you have to do nothing
special at that point because you've
been tracking this month to month up
until that point, which is great.
The second bit of
the strategic analysis on a monthly
basis, there has to be some place,
the organization where that occurs
because it's not going to happen in
your weekly sessions and it has to
happen somewhere.
And then it becomes a question of do
you do it monthly or do you do a
quarterly?
In my previous company
we did it more on a quarterly basis.
However, we also had another
meeting that was happening, which is
every cross-functional OKR
team where leadership was involved
in those OKR teams as well.
We would basically have the OKR
teams come together and basically
present their progress for the
month. So we had four
cross-functional teams and therefore
we had four kind of monthly reviews
on our progress.
And maybe that's a slightly
different thing that we're talking
about, but it's another batch of
meetings that are tracking the
progress of the company.
In this case, it's on the what
you define as the most important
things in the business to progress
on. So I'm not sure what you make of
that.
It's just really interesting.
This is how every business runs.
And I'm not even convinced that
what we're doing is perfect.
You know, I don't think there is
such a thing as perfect.
I mean, it sounds reasonable to me.
Basically, I haven't done it.
It comes down to the culture of the
business. And I suspect
that what the meetings
are and when they're held
is less important than
how effective the meetings are.
And it's almost like, how do you get
to the point of efficacy
rather than copying somebody
else's schedule.
This is where the culture of the
company and the particular trappings
of the company comes in, because we
had a very good, healthy culture
around accountability for the
doctors.
There was the teams that
drove the process.
I would say, behind doing this.
Cross-functional monthly reviews are
progress check ins.
And they put in a good,
clear effort to ensure they could
articulate that in terms of where
the initiatives were at, where the
results were at, what the month
had looked like, what the next month
ahead would look like.
And those sessions, from a efficacy
standpoint, I thought were really
super valuable and very, very
useful.
Previously, I have spent a
tremendous amount of time tracking
activity, like agreeing actions
and making sure people do actions
and a high level accountability
around action.
And what I've started doing
this time around is
not really focusing on the action at
all. It may be because it's the
exact team and a lot of the doers
are not in that meeting,
but it's around surfacing
areas where we need to have the hard
conversations.
And it's basically
the problem keeps arising because
we don't make the decision
or we don't have the conversation
or we talk around something
and then kind of feel like we have a
resolution and because, okay,
but if you look back and reflect, we
have no resolution.
And what I'm really doing is
focusing on
let's resolve something or
let's realize we can't resolve it
because we need more information.
Let's go and find the information
and then reopen.
The conversations have been very
clear on whether or not.
We have resolution and that seems
to be a real unlock way
more than an action tracker.
I think sometimes when you have
these conversations, various things
happen in people's heads, right?
Where they're like, I kind of buy
into this, but I kind of don't.
Or more often than I kind
of buy into this, but I kind of
don't care.
So therefore, in earnest, I'm not
really going to try to solve this
problem. And what ends up happening
is that that problem will come back
into the leadership meeting in a
mutated form at some point down the
road. And you're kind of looking at
it again. You're like, why is this
happening?
This gets to the culture of the
leadership team and the facilitator
that's helping make it happen,
which is sussing out at the
end of that meeting probably the
beginning, to be honest, which is
like, how much do we care about
this? Like do we honestly, the
people that we're talking like we
all have a thousand things to do.
Is this an important problem that we
should talk about now?
Is it urgent enough?
Is it pervasive enough?
And if it is, let's talk it through.
Let's come to an agreement on it and
let's get it done. Basically, that
it's not. Look at this again.
I think because we're all good
communicators, it can feel like
you've made a decision or you've
kind of gone around and you've had a
chat here and had a chat there and
and you've had like a complete
conversation and
it feels like you've made a
decision. And then if you take a
step back, you realize like no
decision has been made.
We've all just aired our views
and agreed with each other's views
or disagreed with each other's
views. But there's not been
something after that.
We've discussed around
the topic.
I feel as though most of my career
has been this experience.
Like it's not unique to peak where
we can have this really robust
conversation and actually nothing
has been decided and somehow we
haven't noticed it.
But it gets back to like the
initially five steps in those
meetings, right?
Once you've like mined for your
disagreement, you've been able to
air everything. You've co-created a
shared understanding of the problem
and you're driving towards buy in.
And then the next step after that is
like, I think, reflection back
to the group saying, okay, here's
what I think we've decided or what
the outcome is.
Do we actually do we agree to that?
Like that second half of the meeting
is probably the critical piece to to
drive it to a conclusion.
I think previously in my career,
it's kind of like a tension only
like there's so much to it.
This is an obvious conversation.
We've resolved it done, whereas
really we haven't resolved it at
all.
And I'm focusing much more on that
now.
All right. We've got part two in our
series, which is what are the gaps
in the SEO toolkit?
We have a lovely returning
guest, Stephanie Knowles, and
she is the founder of the SEO
roundtable and the former CEO
of Mind Candy.
So this episode really
is digging into the shadow side
of the SEO strengths.
And Davinia had talked
about four strengths
of the SEO that are human
archetypes. And I wanted to go
through each of the four with you.
So the first one that she'd
spoken about was the caregiver
SEO.
And this is a person that focuses on
creating a supportive and nurturing
environment within the organization.
And the weakness of their.
The shadow side is
over protection and excessive
leniency, avoiding tough
decisions, trying to preserve
harmony, becoming overly involved
in day to day issues, preventing
scalability and strategic focus.
So without weakness in
play and for that kind of caregiving
SEO, what would be some tips
to that person to mitigate
that weakness?
I think it's about four factors.
Taking and also the difference
between being nice and being kind
and looking at your behavior.
And so if you're somebody who does
not like being disagreeable,
disagree ability is another one of
these psychological things.
And yet another one of these tests,
so agreeable and disagreeable is
like whether or not you mind
being a bit of a contrarian or
causing some discomfort within an
organization.
And so if you are somebody
who really does not like being
disagreeable, really likes
harmony, it is difficult
to have those hard conversations
and is easy to be a bit avoidant
in those situations and easy
to think about being nice
and having probably been praised as
a child about being nice.
And isn't that a strength of yours?
And nice particularly, I think for
women. You know, being nice is one
of those things that we're supposed
to be, but that is not the same as
being kind.
And I think it's much more important
to be kind than it is to be nice.
And so if you
don't have the difficult
conversations, if you don't hold
people to account, if you don't give
feedback so that they can do better,
you end up enticing them to the
point too, that you then have to
fire them.
And it's a total surprise.
And actually the much kinder thing
is to give people the ability to
change along the way for the
organization to develop along the
way.
So number two, the Sage SEO.
So this is the strategist and the
analyst leveraging data and
knowledge drive operational
efficiency and growth.
And the weakness
of the sage SEO is analysis
by paralysis and detachment.
Detachment in the sense of going
through intellectual exercises and
thinking through great strategies
and ways to be effective in the
business. But when it comes to
actually getting buy in from
individuals and getting the heart
and soul of business to move in a
direction, there's that detachment
piece where they're not quite not
particularly strong at that.
I thought Sage
could be part of me,
but my idea of a sage was more
like the wise
man, because why not be gendered
here?
Sitting on the mountaintop
that everybody goes to for
sage bits of advice.
And I feel as though I'm that one
rather than the analysis paralysis.
And what I think
my weakness is, if we use
my definition of the sage
is I'll have a certain
amount of fixed mindset because it's
like my wisdom and only my wisdom.
Rather than being flexible that
there could be other wisdom.
And also because a lot of my
self esteem is wrapped up in knowing
things and being
the one who has seen it
before, it can
be hard for me to step away from
what I decide is the right thing.
And it's not just intellectually
hard. It's emotionally hard.
And so for me, that would be what it
is, is like growth mindset
has got me where I am and
maintaining a growth mindset.
Even when you think that
you are the wisest person
is the challenge and the shadow side
for me.
And then there's also maybe
this is another part of the sage
element is when you have
another sage,
join the exec
team.
I get myself freaked out because I'm
like, my role here
is being.
I'm the sage.
I think
it is interesting because part of me
is like, we need more experience.
I love having you at New Voice
Media. We had loads of experience
around the table. I was at least
experienced. I was playing a
different role.
I really valued everybody else's
experience around the table.
But when I am the
one with the most experience in the
room and that has become my self
worth, and then you have somebody
else coming in who's like, No, I
know more that one.
Like even just talking about it, I
can feel the tension in my stomach
of like, what's my role if this
isn't my role anymore?
And so it's just the
the physical response I'm having
talking about it right now.
One, I'm feeling very vulnerable.
And two, it's clearly something I
need to work through because my
whole body is in flight
mode over the idea
of somebody taking my place.
Massive shadow side raising
its head at the moment.
The third one is the hero solo.
So this is the action oriented,
driving the organization toward
ambitious goals by overcoming
challenges and inspiring resilience.
That sounds totally amazing.
That's you bias for action.
So the weakness here of that
one is overextension
and burnout over committing to
ambitious goals, leading to
unrealistic expectations for
themselves and their teams, taking
on too much personally, undermining
delegation and team empowerment
that.
Is so 100% me that it's just feel
like you're taking on too
much, you know,
burnout.
And I think there's also so there's
a hero and then there's it's tied up
with the fact that you're able to do
a lot of things and so you end up
taking on all these other roles.
I can remember that.
You know, that's another element.
Charlene talked about it.
Didn't she like the ability to be
big and small and
the glue that sticks it all
together?
Yeah, this is 100% me.
And a lesson I have to learn
over and over again is not to push
the team too hard, not to make
them cry out of exhaustion
and burnout. Because
if I can do it, the whole team can
do it. Not to make my self burnout,
which I think has been I'm not burnt
out, but the theme of the last few
episodes has been it's dark
and cold and miserable
and I don't want to
do anymore.
So, you know, but I really like
Rejoint for four months, so I don't
refusing to use the word burnout
here.
Again, if I'm being really
vulnerable and open today on
all of this is I have, instead
of acknowledging the
dark side, just decided
to embrace that.
This is what I want to do.
And it's fun.
So tucking away the dark side into a
little box.
Yeah, totally. I'm just like, This
is 100%
how I want to live life.
I want to live life to the fullest.
There is no dark side.
Let's just go.
And so maybe another thing I need to
explore and maybe open
up that box.
And I think there's also there are
definitely ways to be more balanced.
Like if I look at instead
of the fact that I'm doing too much
and might possibly be burnt out is
within a business
context driving
the team too hard.
Or sometimes I'll have a vision
and I'll share the vision and then
people take me
literally.
And then it sounds like an
impossible thing to achieve
and they don't really understand how
to get started.
Whereas I'm like, No, no, no.
I can't even think of an example I
wish I could, which would make it
better. But like, I don't mean
we need a crystal palace,
I just need a box
with some windows and we'll
get to the Crystal Palace.
But let's do the box with windows
first. And I was like,
because sometimes I'll have
a vision in mind and it just gets
everybody tangled up.
And then they go in like, way over
Architect What I'm talking about, as
I've learned to try and break down
the vision into very small,
achievable steps.
But sometimes I don't do that.
And then the other one is because I
have this ideal that we're working
towards and I have quite
a high standards, particularly
for like slides
and clarity of thought that
often I demand 100%
and forget the 8020 rule.
And so I am trying to introduce more
of an 8020 rule for myself and
everyone else of like, what is
the 20% that's going to make the
biggest difference and not do the
100% like and
which is a big departure because I'm
not even saying like, let's do 80%.
I'm saying let's do 20%, which is
hard for me to get around
because I want it to be perfect.
But actually it's very true.
So number four is the last one.
This is the magician.
Whoa! This is the person that
envisions and executes
transformative strategies to make
the company a leader in innovation.
So this kind of sounds like your
what you just talked about.
Actually, I think a little bit.
Yeah. I think Okay, so I've these
two and these are my archetypes.
Yeah.
What's the shadow side on this
one?
So the shadow side is idealism
and lack of grounding way.
I just talked about that.
I like what
my Crystal Palace said.
How were you going to get there?
Yeah, actually, I think that you're
exactly right. So let me let let me
read the two details here, though,
see if this resonates.
So overhauling systems or processes
too frequently, causing disruption
and confusion and neglecting
routine operations or details that
sustain the business.
I think we've talked about this
before, this idea of
there being three archetypes of
the way people think.
This is come from a friend who
worked at Bridgewater and this is
why Bridgewater have structured
their business.
There are operators who deal with
the day to day and the firefighting
and the turning of the handle.
And then you have the
architects who
build out.
The vision and the operational
strategy, and they're thinking
from six months to 18, two years
out. And then you have the
strategists who are like two, three
years to ten years out.
What's the big vision?
Where are we going?
And the chessboard that I can't
even see.
And it's around creating
a team that has all of those
attributes.
And so I'm very much the architect,
and I can be the perfect architect
and forget about the day to day
stuff. So I make sure that I hire
in people who love the day to day.
And then I make sure I partner with
somebody who has that massive vision
rather than trying to be all things
at all times.
I'm never going to love
grinding away on
the same information over and over
again.
So what? Do we park it here and get
on to our conversation with
Stephanie Knowles for part two.
And the shadow side of
our strengths.
The ones that tend to come up quite
a lot are caregiver
apps.
Sage The Wisdom
Heroes.
So Sage caregiver
hero, which I think is like
the Challenger bravely
and magician, which
is the transforming one, which
you can again you can understand
because a lot of CEOs end up being
change and transformation leaders.
So the magician who sort of
does things as if by magic, often
in the background, people don't see
it and then things come to fruition.
We all have a shadow
side, like a union, shadow side
to ourselves.
And I watched Inside
Out too, with one of my teenage
sons, my younger teenage son,
yesterday.
And the entire lesson was
about accepting
the entirety of who we are, the good
with the bad, the shadow
self with the
light self.
I just love inside out like the
first one. The second one maybe
wasn't as compelling a story, but it
was an absolutely amazing
lesson to learn and one that I think
any teenager capable of doing that
is amazing.
I think it's great that 45 to be
able to embrace any of my dark side
openly.
And so I just thought I'd be
interested davinia to highlight
areas that are like
tend to be fundamental
weaknesses of,
of CEOs or the dark
side to what we view as our
strengths. Because it's a cliche,
but it's true that every strength
comes with a weakness.
And I have a feeling that it relates
a lot to servant
leadership, which is difficult,
isn't it? Because servant
leadership, in one way I feel like
is a blessing and a curse,
which is so if you are in service
of others all the time, which CEOs
generally tend to be what
I find in upcoming CEOs when I'm
coaching them particularly, is
to use John Geary's phrase, there's
something about teaching them to be
propositional or inviting
them to be propositional, which
is that they sometimes struggle to
have the confidence and
ego sometimes because they're
incredibly humble, usually
personalities, to be
really forthright and have a solid
opinion, which I think can
be enormously challenging.
When you look at some of these gaps,
for example, the external
spokesperson piece, but that's also
sometimes at board level, as we were
talking about last time.
And sometimes I think it can be
because you're expected to be
in service often, and there's
something about how you then frame
that in your own mind as to whether
therefore you're allowed
to have your own opinion
about where the business is going,
how it's being run, the strategy,
all of these other things versus
accepting what you're given in terms
of I get given
a strategy and then I have to
execute against it.
I think about like the role of
a c O
and that relationship
with a CEO
versus a relationship with the rest
of the business. And how
much is servant leadership for the
rest of the business versus almost
like a de facto servant leadership
for the CEO?
And how do you have a challenging
relationship with your CEO
that's also effective?
I mean, maybe it's just my own
thing, but I seem to be
I'm better at being disagreeable,
stating my position, having a
proposition throughout the rest
of the business.
And it's the relationship with the
CEO that I can often find
more challenging where I
have either it's blatantly wrong
and I will say something
or it makes enough sense
that I'll just go and execute and
kind of like not be bothered to
think I don't know what that
archetype is. The lazy archetype
like that lazy thinking archetype.
Does that make sense? Does that is
that something you've ever dealt
with?
100%? And I think that this back
to this sort of being propositional
thing doesn't always have to be
because you don't have the confidence.
It could also be because you're
following what you have
been instructed to do and
to all intents purposes feels like
it's not a hill you want to dial and
say, off you go, until
you realize actually in practice
that that doesn't necessarily
work the way that anyone had
thought it would.
But, you know, that's what came into
my head as well, the relationship
with the CEO, because I also find
that in lots of instances when I'm
working with CEOs, when I'm
working with CEOs, and back to sort
of the first episode we ever did,
this thing about relationship is
huge, right?
As in when I'm
doing chemistry work with CEOs
who I want to work with that
one of the first questions I ask
is, how's the relationship with the
CEO? Let's talk about that for a
bit, because generally speaking, if
it's bad, it's just not going to
work, right? And also, then I
question whether coaching was a good
idea because it's like if we're
going to just spend all of our time
talking about your relationship with
your family because it's
dysfunctional, then I don't think
this is a good idea.
That's not to say that all of these
relationships are rosy,
remembering that most of those
relationships, quasi relationships,
are on some form of spectrum.
I think more often than not, when
you. You hear about CEOs looking for
CEOs, one of the first things they
say is partner,
including sparring partner.
Right.
So somebody I can bounce ideas off,
somebody who can tell me when they
think I've gone a bit sort of off
piste somewhere.
And again, back to sort of the hero
or the challenger. How do you do
that whilst having a good
relationship with them?
And in a way that's more as I really
like the phrase trusted advisor
so that they see that you can
in some ways sometimes give your
opinion, sometimes to the
coach and ask questions and be
curious.
All of that then within that
relationship, but not always
agreeing with them. And sometimes
that's okay too is I don't
necessarily agree with what, you
know, the direction you're taking
here.
Some say that I won't do it.
I'll do as I am bid, but I'm
not entirely sold
at this point. We'll see.
So those are not my challenges.
My challenge is taking the time
to have an opinion because
I think there's just so much going
on.
And also, I love change
and I love doing things
and I kind of like, what's the worst
that could happen? We can always
back out.
So I'm like, That sounds like fun.
I'll go for it.
And I don't always have that circuit
breaker of actually let
me have a bit more of the five.
The analysts. Let me think this
through because I'm like, That's not
fun. Let's just go
and I can, you
know, like completely
pivot on our product and sell
something brand new that we know
nothing about because, like, that
sounds like really an interesting
project.
And so for me, it's taking
the time to actually
decide whether or not it's a good
idea and then being the sparring
partner. So I really only do that
when it's like just hits me between
the eyes. That is like a really bad
idea.
So, but anything short of a
really bad idea, I'm game.
And I suppose it's one of those
characteristics of buys for action,
which is a good quality for the most
part. But I think to your point
out of any I think this trusted
advisor I think is absolutely
spot on, which is you won't have a
relationship with the co founder
where there is inherent trust.
They lean on you for thoughts and
you're in that position where
they're whatever they're coming up
with, they feel comfortable to
bounce those ideas off of you and
it gives you an opportunity at that
point to provide thoughts back
to them in kind of an innocuous way
in terms of what your view is
on that particular issue or maybe a
broader set of issues or what have
you. But if you're in that space as
the trusted advisor, that is a
key and wonderful place to be.
And I think this archetype around
the Sage, I think it dovetails
directly into it, which is that sage
quality very much is exactly
this, which is you're the trusted
advisor to the CEO or you're the
trusted advisor to the leadership
team or the trusted advisor across
the business.
That to me is like a senior CMO
that really is demonstrated to the
organization.
This person that backstops
everything in a very sensible,
rational, helpful way.
So this thing around, lots
of senior CEOs that I work with have
done some form of coaching
qualification and they're
not necessarily going to go off and
be coaches, lots of them.
They can stay as CEOs because that's
what they love.
However, that is
because it's a skill that they
really want to employ in the
business, not just with the people
that work with them, but with the
CEO as well.
So I think that's super interesting
is how you then how you develop
some of this skill set.
Bethany had a question for you
because I have a feeling there's a
shadow in here, which is I
bump into this quite a lot with
CEOs. The shadow sometimes
is that they're actually ruminates
and it might not be you, but it's
kind of an interesting one.
As we talk about the shadow side,
they're much better when they take
things away and think about them and
then come back again versus, you
know, you get lots of CEOs who kind
of really think on their feet and
can sort of hear something,
data, etc.
Just something spits something back
out again. It's entirely reasonable,
rational.
Whereas lots of CEOs,
again, they like to ingest
information, get other data points,
so corral everything together
and figure out themselves and then
come back again.
And also, they then need to give
themselves the time to do that,
right?
Brandon's definitely ruminating,
like in terms of working together on
the podcast.
Brandon prepares.
He has questions, he thinks about
the intro.
He finds themes that
would kill me. I just rock up and
whatever happens, happens.
I think you're the opposite of the
ruminate. Ah, I think you are the
bias for action in real time.
And I think that quality I don't see
that a lot of people and I think
this is probably one of the reasons
or the prime reason why I've been
massively successful.
I would say.
Yeah, so we've discovered somebody
else's shadow side on that one.
I do like gathering information, but
I don't overly gather and I actually
prefer gathering information from
conversations with people than
through data analysis
or sitting with a spreadsheet for a
long time. I love building a
spreadsheet. One of my favorite
things like if I have to do a
spreadsheet, I save it to the end
as my dessert, my
special treat,.
When I'm also remove data,
which. Brandon you can probably tell
because I also have a preparer.
I hear things and then I'm like
it. Go back, check that.
And I kind of get. Go away and
talk to people and have a look at
things or reads and stuff, then come
back again.
Which was always interesting for me
because then in board situations
I'm very quiet because I'm sort of
taking it and trying to figure out
what do I actually think?
And as I said, lots of CEOs that
I've worked with are also ruminates
and trying to see that not as that
it doesn't have to necessarily be
a weakness or gaffe.
When we talk about being expert,
stern or spokesperson, sometimes
CEOs then shy away from that because
they're like, well, I'm not very
this is not my strength versus
I feel like I and I'm not one
of those people. I'm like a
sufferer. I'll be like, I can
do this. I will do this.
I just keep throwing myself at it in
some kind of form of self-love
that I then learned to speak in
public because I kept doing it.
But actually it taught me to think
more on my feet because if you go
into panels and stuff, you're you
don't know what you're going to get lost
to you and you then have to be a bit
more kind of like, right, I've got
to sort of have a point of view very
quickly. I've got to say something
interesting or at least try to
at this point in time so that
you help me is like not shying away
from public speaking.
I was like, Right, if I get public
speaking requests, I'm going
to be on panels, definitely Q&A
style.
So if a bit more kind of statement
was coming.
So I definitely recommend that to.
I could do a panel or a Q&A
any day of the week having to do a
proper talk.
I hate because I have to think about
it. I have to have topics.
It has to have a flow
that gives me all kinds of stress
versus a Q&A or a panel.
And I find that I actually end up
with better ideas and insights
I hadn't come up with yet
because I'm speaking off the cuff.
Going back to something that you
said that I wanted to get into
was that you'll hear something
and then you'll store it for later
to investigate.
Whereas I hear something
and I immediately investigate.
Then why don't you investigate
when you first hear it?
I quite often find that
there are things stored in my head
somewhere that as it bubbles
away still in there, it kind of
works its way around.
Something will occur to me.
Or I'll think about other examples
where I might have seen this before,
or I remember an article I
once read.
So actually, what happens in my
brain, my ruminating brain,
is that my brain keeps working
on it. And so I find that then
it kind of takes me down an avenue
to then kind of go and figure
something out, or I'll be like, Who?
Remember that person?
Actually, I kind of chat with them
and I sort of come back with
a bit more of a fully formed
opinion. So to say that I would
these days, I mean, now that I'm a
self a bit longer in the tooth, I
have a tendency to I'll
share an opinion upfront.
However, I'm like, this is an
unqualified opinion at this point,
but my gut tells me this.
I may go away, sleep on it,
have a shower, think about it, and
then come back with something
slightly different.
But generally speaking, I go away
and other things occur to me just
when my particular brain works.
And it's not to say when I was
operating slightly different,
which is that I had,
you know, obviously there was still
peace time, but there was also quite
a lot of war time and that be crisis
situations that would bubble up.
And then of course you can't do
that. So like I need to have an
opinion right now and I need to get
this thing and I would of course
go do that.
And then you learn by making
mistakes and all of that kind of
good stuff.
However, when I have the time,
I'd rather take the time
because I know my brain works better
on something over a period of time.
I'm okay with that.
I'm a remedy to be quite open about
it. I may go When something
else may come to me, I'll come back.
So here's a question for
the both of you, which is this
caregiver role.
So he said most CEOs come from
this background or have this
archetype within them.
I'm curious if you can tell us more
about why that's the case, why
there's so many CEOs that are
phenomenal caregivers.
I have a feeling that this is to do
with that lovely
living in the gray peace
in organizations, right?
So you end up as a CEO
being the person that is a
commercial business person who's
trying to think, right, what's the
business need? What does it not need
at this point in time?
And also being a person who
loves and cares for the team,
because again, as a caregiver
myself, it felt
to me when I was in organizations,
even the big ones, that people in
teams that weren't mine
felt like my people.
Like actually the whole company is
my team because I sort of
work on the whole company.
So I sort of worked across
everything. So I then mentor
people in different teams and all
that sort of good stuff as well.
But that living in the gray I think
is very difficult sometimes
for a founder CEO
to do.
And what I mean by that is and
again, sometimes founder CEOs
I think can be a bit more business
commercial and a bit cutthroat
sometimes about people, honestly,
which sometimes they need to be
right. If you want to have a
very highly performant organization,
you have to be very mindful
of performance management, giving
people feedback, all of this other
stuff.
And I.
Feel like sometimes
because also they're the founder in
this whole piece around founder
week, I mean, where
they kind of reveal it and
people sort of treat them at a
distance because it's like, well,
it's the founder, etc., etc..
They may be one step away from
people which allows them to have a
bit more substantive, objective
judgment about them, but sometimes
leads them down the path of not
really completely understanding
or knowing those people as well as
they could.
I felt the same way quite often.
Then place the other path that
where they do know people
incredibly well if they're a
caregiver and they do understand
who these people are.
So I have a feeling that's where
this comes from, that it's
sort of a yin and yang.
And again, I'm not saying that
founder CEOs own this like
they and they're not nice.
Their teams are not saying that at
all. But I think delicate balance
between building a highly
performing organization and
focusing on performance management
and how you've gotten the business
and who you need and who you don't
need and roles you need and all
of that. This kind of good stuff
when organizations become too
bloated and all that.
But I have a feeling that the CEO
sometimes is a foil to that
place. The other side of it.
Yeah, I'm not a caregiver.
Bethany doubles down on that.
The cutthroat.
I think because of I'm an introvert,
I can have some very deep
relationships with people,
but it doesn't sway my opinion
or my work relationship
with them. Like even if I have a
very deep relationship, know about
them. If they're underperforming, I
will tell them if they need to leave
the organization, I
will have them leave the organization,
but it's separate to my relationship
with them.
But I do think that's caregiving
and that's my point.
But again, I don't want to offend
founder CEOs, but actually I've
worked with a lot
in a coaching capacity
that we didn't.
Yeah, I would give you that.
So actually then as the CEO,
when I talk about caregiving, I'm
more about that.
But you know, these people, you like
them, you're friendly towards them.
You may know a bit about sort of
their family and all of this good
stuff. And yet you will also
be the person who will give them
some feedback because it's kind and
it's a gift.
That's when I hear caregiving in CEO
world is actually the marriage of
the two is not being
overly soft
is like being empathetic but also
holding the candle around being
performant.
I think also for me, I
don't have a lot of relationships.
And so I guess I was thinking of a
caregiver as somebody that has a lot
of relationships across the
business, maybe because of my
introversion or just time.
Like I'll have limited deep
relationships and then almost
no relationship with everybody else.
And I just go out of my way to have
relationships.
Like I feel as though my leadership
style for the most part,
does not depend on individual
relationships, and
those just happen because
of a byproduct of working with
people or something has meant that
our paths have crossed in a more
meaningful way.
Is there a number of relationships
as part of the caregiving element?
If you think about it a slightly
different way, some characterized it
really nicely for me the other day
when they were talking about
sometimes dependent on
your personality.
You're either somebody who networks
for need because you want you
want need to do something and
therefore you go and
sort of create relationships in
order to do that, or you do it
in of itself, as in
these people in front of you and
you're curious about them and you
want to sort of learn a bit about
them and you may never work with
them or do something with them
because of how far away in the
organization they are to you.
It doesn't matter anyway.
You're curious enough that you would
go and seek them out and figure out
who they are.
And I think that's kind of that's a
good characterization because it's
like you're more likely,
therefore, to engage in
social situations for no
purpose.
So no sort of work related
or task related purpose,
you're more likely to be there
to be around.
And again, you know, it's
interesting because I would say that
I'm I'm actually I'm also
an introvert and I have a few
deep relationships,
but I'm also incredibly people
curious.
So I love talking to new people,
but it takes me a lot of energy to
do that if I don't know them.
And it's a learned skill over time.
Similarly, I feel like, you know, if
we think about caregiving as having
these two sides of this coin, when
I was younger in my career, I look
younger in my career, I feel like I
was very soft indeed.
So I'd more of the empathy side,
less of the other side, until
I sort of had a bit of a realization
of like, this is helping
people, but actually giving them
feedback, making sure that they're
very valid in the organization that
they're performing, that it's
helping them.
I think what you said, Bethany, is
right on point, which is this one
too many leadership style, where you
have a large organization and you
have to project yourself or people
understand who you are and
get some feeling of empathy
or connection or.
Or residents or they understand
who Bethany is, and therefore that
means something to them.
Thereby, the leadership overlay
on top of that becomes much more
powerful in a sense.
I think you're very good at this
because I think your ability to
express vulnerability,
openness, compassion, I
think your ability to project that
on a one to many basis, I almost
guarantee you, serves you quite well
in terms of creating connections
with individuals, even if you don't
realize it.
Which happens most of the time.
But I will be more might
because there will always be people
that see something in me that upsets
them because it sees show something
in them that they don't like.
And I know that there's a probably
a core of 20, 30%
who don't get
me like me, fear me,
have whatever issues with me.
But at this point I just don't care.
Like I should care, but I don't care
because I just don't have time for
it. And it's a reflection of
something that's going on in their
own minds, not on mine.
And I've set out my stall and I am
who I am. And if you don't like me,
then don't listen to me.
Don't follow me.
Don't stay at the company.
There's plenty of space for people
who do want to.
Should you care?
I don't know. Maybe I should care,
but I don't think they see their
light side. Dark side don't know.
We are wired to try
to figure out other people's
behavior. Why are they doing that?
What's going on?
Why are they doing?
And the other and we fundamentally
just basically guess
all the time.
And also in lots of times,
lots of people are not curious
enough to ask what's going on for
that other person.
Because most times, as you say,
Beth, the thing that you are
receiving, it's got nothing to do
with you. It's actually all to
do with what's happening in their
world and how they have that.
Then the narrative they've created
around it could be to do with you
depending on how you act towards
people. I'm not saying all behavior
is acceptable by any means,
but quite often it has nothing
to do with you.
It's closest to the person.
So if everybody
of our listeners can only take one
thing away from today's
conversation, what is it?
Say I'm taking back to something
that we said in the last episode of
this that's come up again here,
which is, So how
do you firstly truly embrace the
things that are you
say all the things that are you
in terms of your skills, but also in
terms of your characteristics,
personality, that sort of thing.
How do you embrace that and use that
and what you do?
But also how do you
acknowledge there may be shadows
here, some of which you could do
something about, some of which you
can't and understand them?
Because I think the more self-aware
we are about some of these things,
the better off will be as to be
choice for about what we decide to
do.
And if some of the points here
have resonated for you in terms
of development points and could
be some areas that you may want to
work on know.
And so take note of things.
And work on with Davinia the SEO
coach. Not that I'm just going to do
the plug for you, so if you feel
like you need to do some
coaching work and any
of this has sparked
a curiosity, I highly recommend
getting in touch with Davinia.
Thank you once again Davinia for
joining us on the operations room.
If you like what you hear, please
leave a comment or subscribe and we
will see you next week.