Latest / Beyond the Needle: The Aesthetics Business Podcast / How To Communicate More Effectively with Your Team & Patients with Marcus Haycock

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How To Communicate More Effectively with Your Team & Patients with Marcus Haycock · Beyond the Needle: The Aesthetics Business Podcast

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Beyond the Needle, the Aesthetics Business Podcast.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Each week I'm here to share real actionable strategies and bring on expert guests to help you level up, attract more patients, and build a stand-up brand.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's turn your passion into a thriving business together.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Real quick before we get started, now I know this from experience both as a business owner and as a former clinic manager.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: The operations side never gets easier as a clinic grows.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Staff schedules, payments, marketing, all of it pulling attention away from the treatment room.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: That is, unless you have Gloss Genius, the intelligent system that does all of that work for you, so you can focus on the work you love and watch your revenue grow.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Gloss Genius is sponsoring this episode and is giving you an exclusive code.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Enter code Needle at glossgenius.com for 50% of your first two months of their MedSpa and aesthetic plans.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Available to US businesses only.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into the episode.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, welcome back to the Beyond the Needle podcast.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm delighted to be joined once again by Marcus Haycock for part two of our series where we're diving deep into all things strategic leadership, building a team culture that lasts, and communication styles.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're talking about self-awareness.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this might actually be one of the most practically useful conversations I have had on this podcast for anyone running a clinic or managing a team.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Research suggests that only around 15% of people are genuinely self-aware, even though almost all of us think we are.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start thinking about what that means inside a clinic, how you communicate with your team, how your team communicates with each other, what is actually happening in a consultation when a patient pushes back or goes quiet or seems hard to connect with, it starts to explain a lot of friction that most clinic owners just put down to personality clashes or difficult people.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Marcus has been working with insights profiling for 10 years and has brought it specifically into aesthetic settings.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And before we recorded this, I actually went through the profiling process myself, had my own debrief, and some of what came back really surprised me and has actually been a really useful tool in learning why I communicate with people the way I do, why I react to certain things the way I do, and how I can better communicate with the people that I deal with day to day.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Not just in a business setting, but in personal relationships as well.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So in this episode, we dive into what self-awareness actually means when you're running a business, what insights profiling does, and why it is very different to just a simple personality quiz, how understanding communication styles changes what happens in your team and in your treatment room, and how to use these learnings to build a really strong team culture.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we get into the episode, please do subscribe to the podcast on your listening platform of choice if you'd like to be notified when new episodes go live.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to leave me a little review.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I really do appreciate every single one of them.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the podcast, Marcus.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So great to have you back with me again.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we're talking about Discovery Insights and how understanding different personality types can help make you a better leader and help you manage your team more effectively.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me a little bit about Discovery Insights and how you work with it with your own clients.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So my connection and my story with Discovery Insights and profiling goes right back to 2012 when the previous company I worked with took an initiative to invest in their employees.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea was to uncover what each employee's communication preference was, and also at the time overlay that for the sales team with a sales model, seven steps typical sales model.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: The reason were that it was the fact that the senior management team were quite visionary at the time.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted to really create an environment where they really focus on great teamwork, understanding each other and really building on each other's strengths.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: They were attracted to Discovery Insights because they this company was established in the early 90s and is one of quite many companies which do a lot of profiling.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the one thing which I think stands out massively with Discovery Intricates is they don't try to label a person as being a particular type, and they use a four-color model to overlay people's what they call energies and how that balances out in terms of their communication preference.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing I found when I engaged with them was that I filled in a uh 20-minute questionnaire online, and there was no right or wrong answers, and the whole idea with Discovery Insights and your profiling is that as a personality, you're perfect, you're not trying to be anybody uh you're not meant to be, you're perfect the way you are.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about self-discovery and self-awareness.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So every human being has strengths in the way they communicate, but as we know, being human, we have blind spots.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when I filled in this questionnaire, I got it back, I had a comprehensive profile of over 20 pages.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are other companies which are so well known out there called Disc, which you tend to be compartmentalized into a certain label, and it can be quite useful, definitely, but to my knowledge, Discovery Insights has got such rich information about who you are, how you think, how you might respond under pressure, how you want to be managed.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is all packaged up in the questionnaire.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine as a corporation, not only do you see yourself in a more 360 version, so you're aware of yourself aware, you know, you become more aware of your blind spots, but your manager also has ex access to these profiles.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now, somebody, some people might feel, oh, I'm not sure about that.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do I want my manager knowing what my at the end of the day, knowing full well that your manager will also have a profile and share the profile, we had a situation at our company where everybody was happy to share their profiles, and this created a really open environment where we could really apply our strengths, and what happened was it removes judgment from the workplace because we know that people communicate in different ways, but a lot of conflict will appear in the workplace because one person communicates in one way, which is misinterpreted in a different way to somebody who might be their opposite type.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I became an accredited trainer in 2016, and I've been using Discovery Insights now for over 10 years.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I used it in my previous role as a manager.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Every single member who joined my team had an Insights profile done.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And as a manager, I became almost telly I could almost read everybody's thoughts because I had that profile on them and I knew how they wanted to be communicated with and how they wanted to be managed.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: To have that kind of tool, you know, enabled me to advance my understanding of that person, I would say, by about three years in a very small space of time because you just know how they tick.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And your job as a leader is to adapt and create that environment for that for that person.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I profound I found it profoundly useful.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm having this offering where I'm going into workplaces in medical aesthetics, but also into other environments where people just want to create that kind of ideal team culture where everybody appreciates the strengths of one another, we've removed judgment, and and we can have a gamified half-day or full-time session.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Very enjoyable.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's so interesting, and a lot of people might be listening and thinking it sounds a little bit like a personality quiz that you might be able to do online, but it is actually very different, and I've done one myself, and it's very in-depth, and you learn a lot about yourself and you understand why you might react to certain things the way you do, and and you know, what you need in order to thrive.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was gonna say at work, but really in any type of relationship or any communication with anybody.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of things will people learn from it?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: What can it tell for for like a clinic owner listening who might be thinking about it from the point of view of getting getting this done within their team and understanding their team better?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: What will it tell them and what will it give them?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: What tools will it give them?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think for everybody who completes the profile, because I know you you've you've done this, Emily, and we'll talk about that later.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it will show your contribution to the team.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's quite positive and aspirational and and and really empowering because from day one, when you get the profile, you know straight away that with what I do and the way I communicate, I've got real value to the team.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: We know with Discovery Insights, the way they compartmentalize this, there's there's eight roles within a team.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can see clearly what your preference might be and the role you play within that team.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: It will give you all your strengths and it will show your managers what your strengths are.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it will enable your managers that if you're doing extra projects, what you may find gives you a lot of energy and what projects you might want to do more of.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: We occasionally can be really good at stuff, which actually we don't really find that exciting and it might drain us.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to discover quite a lot about ourselves.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: On the flip side, this thing about self-awareness, I think you might have some interesting stats about self-awareness.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: The vast majority of people are not fully self-aware.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: So when we get the profile back, we can understand where her blind spots are.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we can become better team members, better at a job if we're aware of our blind spots as well.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: From a manager's perspective, it will show the manager how you want to be communicated with.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So being aware of that is good, especially from a leadership point of view.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other great thing about this as well is that if you were to do this in a team of, say, six or eight people, you can plot the profiles around a colour wheel.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can see the distribution of different personalities, the role they play in the team, and it's that source of connection.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to build a really, really inspiring team, we you know that you've got quite a quite a useful dispersion of people in the team to achieve what you might want to achieve.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, those are the kind of traits.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I did my profile in 2012, and people might think, okay, well, what is it, 2026 now, 14 years on, maybe your personality has changed.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: What unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to feel about it, is your personality when you become adult is usually it's it's there for your rest of your life.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's how you show up and how you evolve by using different energies and how you adapt to situations.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: But once in despite the fact that you might think you've changed radically, you'll still be the same position on this wheel, whether you do the personality profile now or whether you do it in 30 years' time, but your colour energies will will show up, and that can be also related to the job you're doing as well.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely fascinating.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say I've still got well, I've still got my original profile, I can still look at it now.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a personal tool, which I think is probably when the most valuable personal development tool I've ever had in my entire life, because I've had this full 360 based on my input, so nobody's judging me and telling me what I'm like.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's based on the question or the answers I put into this questionnaire, which shows me how other people might experience me, which is incredible, really.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, such such a useful tool to have for so many different, you know, situations that you might be in, not just like I say, in work, but in personal things as well.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: What are some common blind spots that clinic managers or clinic owners typically have that they might be surprised about that they learn about when they do this profile?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so blind spots are unique to that that person, and you know, people are different, very different.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: But with Cole Jung, and Cole Jung was the person who was the what many people know is the ultimate psychologist and psychiatrist, and he came up with this idea of preferences.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So a hundred years ago, he observed the fact that when he looked at a lot of human human behaviour and communication, there would be certain preferences certain personalities would adopt.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he compartmentalized them into you know eight eight different sort of personalities.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea is that your blind spots will be different dependent on what your preferences are.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So perhaps an example of this in the way the model might work would be if we take it maybe a typical sales personality, it tends to be on the extrovert scale, likes a strong connection with pe people, high energy, likes a fun environment.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: They would probably find tasks which are quite draining, are the tasks which are very detail-focused.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is a generalization in the in the main, but they would connect with people who show a lot of energy, a quite big picture, allow them to obviously have have a chat, you know, so they they they they are quite rewarded by a bit of status and recognition as well.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Their blind spot might be if they're a salesperson and they come across a buyer who is a little bit more on the introvert scale, is focused on attention to detail, is very wary of people talking blandly about stuff and using hyperbole and exaggerated language, they have a big focus on the need to look at stats and evidence.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I did a workshop with a sales team, and this one lady who was very effervescent, you you could tell a classic personality profile, she was struggling with one key customer which was worth a fortune, but she couldn't quite connect with this with this guy.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And her assumption was that she thought she she wasn't connecting because her preference was to be exciting and show dynamism.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: So she thought that if she upped her yellow even more, this would create an even better connection because then he'd see the importance of it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: As it transpired after the workshop, she realised this wasn't the right approach.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it was going to get a counterproduction because this guy is very, very you know detailed, wouldn't make a quick decision because needs to reflect on the data.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So once she knew that understanding about that customer and the way they would approach it, she dialed her yellow down.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: She went into the call with a lot of uh statistics, a lot of evidence, took her time, slowed her pace down, and lo and behold, three months later, she'd had a breakthrough with this client.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: He saw her as a lot more credible because what she was doing, she was she was able to decode this customer and then she was able to adapt.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: But prior to this training and her personality profiling, she lacked the self-awareness that when she's dealing with her so-called opposite opposite subtype, is very blue, that she would need to dial down her yellow energy quite profound.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the question is in medical aesthetic clinics is first of all, how does this play out with your team members to avoid conflict?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But you're also your patients, but also your patients, yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so interesting because when uh you know practitioners see many different patients a day, a week, month, they're all gonna have different personalities, different ways they like to be kind of spoken to or sold to.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, I don't know, really like to use the word selling around treatments, but effectively that is what you're doing.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's different people are gonna need different approaches to that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do practitioners use that this tool when it comes to their patients?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and without the tool, what can they be doing to better read people and understand people better?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sure, I think it's a great question.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So the the one thing I've observed in this market, certainly for medical practitioners, when I did business consulting, these were two core programmes which we did which were transformational.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: The first one was to ask practitioners have you ever been exposed to the right kind of research which you know why patients act the way they do the way they do?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And have you ever had a structured patient-centric consultation programme or training or coaching on that?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, what I usually find in this industry is that medical practitioners might adopt a similar process to what they did in the NHS, which is all about fixing problems.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: But when we're dealing with the aesthetic patient, a different patient-centric model needs to be adopted.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the only reason I know this is the previous company invested millions in getting the research to create this model which transformed the consultations for patients.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, even though it was based on a sales model, when you deploy deployed this with mastery, the people who didn't feel like they wanted to sell came across, believe it or not, more salesy than the ones who were adopting this kind of advanced, uh, very subtle strategic sales approach.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because everything within that structure was geared to be centered on the patient.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it came across to patients like they were getting five-star service.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the first programme where we improved on that and took it to the nth level was to overlap discovery insights on this.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, talking to medical practitioners, I got really intrigued about the types of patients, and what was quite common in a lot of practices is that the patients sometimes reflected the personality of the owner.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, it could be that they attract a lot of people who might be yellow-green because that's how the owner would show up.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: They wouldn't necessarily decode or adapt their social style to the different types of patients, and sometimes they might misinterpret people's personality and communication preferences as being maybe rude or troublesome when that's not their intent, it's just their communication profile.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when they get exposed to this, they realize that they can do really simple things to adapt to different personality types, they become less judgmental, they become more curious, but ultimately they become more financially successful because they're connecting to a wider variety of different personality types.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, you're going to get some patients who are troublesome, but in the main they tend not to be that many.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's rare, isn't it?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: But the one frustration I hear from quite a lot of practitioners is the patient who comes in quite nervous, introverted, asks a million questions, wants a lot of data.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just purely perhaps because you know it's a big step for them.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and sometimes if you've been in this business for a long time, I do know if people are short of time, they may feel like they're going over on their schedules for this patient.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if that's managed well and they give them follow-up information, they understand where this patient is coming from, they can identify that they need a lot of information to settle them, and then they feel cared for.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: What you find is that they can start attracting these kind of patients, and over a period of time, their desire for that huge amount of information, lessons and lessons and lessons.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I do find some practitioners, they're frustrated with this because they think, oh, I can't, I can't be dealing with patients like that.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it saps their energy.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard this from people.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is common actually, when you get these patients and they're kind of overly cautious, and I think it puts practitioners off because they think, is anything I do for this person going to satisfy them?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or are they going to be a problem patient and they're going to be texting me at 10 o'clock, pictures of their face asking if this is normal?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of puts practitioners off, but it's just like you say, understanding those different personality traits and and their and their personality profile, that's just their in most cases, that's just their personality, as they need to feel comfortable and empowered with knowledge and like they really, you know, they've probably been thinking about it for years, it's probably a huge step for them.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess in situations like that, having these tools is really, really useful.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think great, great example there, Emily.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, you've hit the nail on the head of why that's so important.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: On the previous podcast, we we spoke about the importance of protocols.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when you know that you've got this type of patient coming in, how should we serve up this information?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: What can we do after the call?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Not every patient will want that.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you apply those tactics to somebody who's got a strong Ren energy, they don't like detail.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: They just want to know that you're the right person for the job, you're going to be focused on results.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: They might not be great on small talk.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: You may perceive them as being blumming rude and not like you think initially, I don't really like this person.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're rude.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're always questioning about results and everything.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: But but at the end of the day, they they could have the potential to spend a lot of money, and you would be misjudging them because it's just their preference.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So being curious rather than taking that judgment line is the key.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you could be that practitioner who can be a chameleon and can deal with all different types.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, the one caveat here, there will be some patients though, and the listeners on this podcast will be more qualified than me, but there are certain problem patients out there, you know, the dysmorphobic.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're not talking about catering for every single patient, no matter what, the appropriate clinical safeguards to be in place.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: But just on the question of personality and likability and whether they resonate with you, there's a huge opportunity for practitioners to get exposure to those kind of um skill sets or anything.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's it just goes to show how powerful having this tool is not just for managing a team and dealing with with different personalities within your clinic, but also with your patients and getting the most out of consultations and building.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Those relationships in a more effective way.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So people are going to feel more connected to you and and will come back to you again.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually you mentioned um a minute ago about stats, and yes, I do have some stats around self-awareness.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know you like the stats.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: I like my stats.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So research suggests only 15% of people are genuinely self-aware, even though the vast majority of us believe we are.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's a good point.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So one thing before answering that question, those stats relate to a book which was published in 2017.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you do have listeners who like to read around the subject, there was a book called Insight, not connected to Discovery Insight, it's just curiously overlapping with that.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was by a lady called Tasha Urich, who was a busy psychologist, and she did a lot of uh research.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think she interviewed over 2,000 or 3,000 executives in a range of different organizations with really well-purposed scientific questionnaires to judge whether they were truly self-aware.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Haven't got the massive detail on that, but her conclusions were that 15% of people truly are self-aware, despite the fact that 95% of people truly think they are.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it comes back to that business where when you communicate, you know what your intent is.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it's that just that missing piece of you're not entirely certain how your communication is landing with other people.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you could perhaps take four people in a room, and it might land slightly differently with four different people, just and you're you're doing the you're giving the same the giving the same talk or conversation.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it affects all of us, you know, and I think more people are naturally questioning themselves, but then they can uh you know they can overthink it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, I would say it's almost impossible to see how you truly come across without using diagnostic tools like this as well.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was a bit shocked when I first did my profile and it looked at my blind spots, so it made me really think about adjusting myself.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Were they things that you thought you were good at that you actually weren't, or that were saying that you were weaker?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think it would be the fact that what we see with insights is what can sometimes be a strength if it's overplayed in a stressful situation, can become a big weakness.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So an example might be we know that people with a strong red energy energy they have a desire to get results, you know, they uh don't always do the small talk.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is not wholly me, I do have some red energy, but in stressful situations, people can get so focused on the result or the goal, they become tunnel vision from a leadership point of view.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: You may be immune to other people's views where maybe you're not listening, you become more impatient, it's how you show up.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's interesting when we are in stressful situations, is it natural for our awareness, self-awareness to go out the window?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that the world of work is is it's become more complex and more challenging than ever.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, I always keep coming back to this AI piece.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: What will help you in the future and will keep you in work is the fact that if you become a real excellent at communication skills, still being human has got value?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: The technical analytical stuff is going to be done by AI, but people are always gonna want that human connection.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's the main thing to always think about.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: How can understanding the different personality types within your team really help a manager or clinic owner?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if there's people listening and they think, you know, they're listening to this and they're thinking, yeah, there is someone in my team who I'm struggle with a little bit, you know, maybe I tell them to do things and they don't always do them the way I ask them to do them, or I ask them to report back to me every day about XYZ or check in with me once a week about XYZ and they I have to remind them to do it, you know, they're not quite getting what they want out of that person.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: It could be down to a personality clash, or the way they like to be communicated with isn't being done properly by that clinic owner or manager because they don't understand that that's the way that that person wants to be communicated with.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I think you've summarised it really good.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think when you're in a situation perhaps where you're not getting the most out of a certain person, maybe the natural human response, if you're a manager and you haven't had the structured training on leadership, you may default by saying, is that a personality or a skill flaw with them?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think the first thing is before jumping to that conclusion, it's always to figure out, okay, what is it I'm doing which might be causing that problem?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not always saying it's the leader's problem, but sometimes, for instance, let's take a maybe a typical profile of somebody who's a receptionist who's very, very into caring for patients, making sure that they feel comfortable, cared for when they walk into the clinic, whole focus on that people side.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: They might not like detail, they might not like as much structural process, and they may be a little bit on maybe some of them might be a little bit on the introverted scale, or they can be extrovert, but they they want to feel like you care for them, you value your opinion.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: As an owner, if you're in a stri a stressful situation and you wasn't quite aware of how they wanted to be communicated with, and you were less self-aware, you may be in a situation where you resort to giving them direction.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: The way you that lands might be they may consider that quite, you know, maybe not as a caring approach.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: It it may come across as well, you don't really value my opinions, I'm just a robot, you're telling me what to do, and you've got all the answers.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, and then they may feel threatened by that, so then they tune out.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that again is an extreme example, but it's an example of maybe a leader is not quite so self-aware of personal first of all the different personality types and how you might want to communicate with them, what makes them tick, and also what they're like under pressure.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the main thing from a leader's point of view is the worst thing you can ever do is solve people's problems for them.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some things do need your input, but one of the I I probably made 10 classic mistakes when I got promoted.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I could almost write a book on how to disengage T.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I made every single mistake What were some of them?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me some of the key ones because I'm sure a lot of people probably So I think the first thing is because I'd been doing the day job and I was so good at it at the time, I naturally believed with my I suppose with my short-sightedness, my op myopia, was that my way was always the best way.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now I look back on it, and there's lots of different ways to get results, and different personalities are going to have different strengths.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they can still achieve what I achieved, if not achieve more, but I needed to adapt my mindset.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is I was plagued with because I was the consultant and the expert advisor, I felt like I needed the answer to everything.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I go into the leadership position, I felt that was my job is to give everybody the answers, and of course it's not because you disengage everybody, A, you're not showing them the trust, and I I kind of missed the behavioural connection piece because I was so focused on being that top former still.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: So rather than thinking about how do I get productivity engagement through other people, I was making life terribly difficult for myself, and it was a self-awareness thing, but as I say, I managed to turn that as around, which which was great.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the the biggest help I because I'd been an accredited uh insights trainer, I made sure that every team member did their profile.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: So very easily, when I started to take a more big picture strategic approach to leadership, where I'm just focusing on the task, I thought, right, okay, first of all, I need to connect better with these people.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Who are they?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: How do they like to be communicated?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where are they on that on that wheel?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Who are my opposite communication types?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then what do I need to do to adjust and adapt better to them?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's the value of insights as well.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing what it can do for you as a manager as well.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what are the two common personality types or colours that tend to kind of clash together within a team?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this model is because it uses four basic colours, and again, it it's really how this is construed because the most important thing about insights is that a little bit of knowledge can be a bad thing, and we're not just one colour.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: So all of us have all these four colours: red, green, blue, and yellow.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the preference we have for that automatically.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, generally speaking, if you have somebody who leads with a red preference, their opposite type would be somebody who leads with green.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody who leads with green is more on the introversion scale and they are more feeling-led.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody who leads with red is more slightly more on the extrovert scale and leads with logic and thinking.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So they're kind of diametrically opposed.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if both parties don't try and adapt a little bit, that can cause the clash.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the great thing about insights is that it only takes about five or ten percent of a shift for both parties to move in the direction of the other to get that connection.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then you've got the wider awareness about this, and you suddenly find that you know people become self-aware and they use that curiosity as opposed to judgment in the way they think about stuff.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that can improve massively.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: The other one is where you've got somebody who has got strong blue energy and led with that, so cautious, slightly introvert, don't like quick decisions because they like balance, they like to reflect on stuff, they like data, diametrically opposed to somebody who is yellow who doesn't really like detail.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't bore me with the detail, make it exciting.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Their tone and their delivery is very different as well.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you can you can see you can see that as a potential clash.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So people with strong yellow energy might be thinking, Oh, I find this really draining with this person, you know.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: All they want is data and everything.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just uh, you know, it's just not fun, you know.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: For goodness sake, you know.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can see the big picture in this.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then the person who's with blue is they keep on talking and talking, they're making these furious claims.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: How do I don't, you know, they excuse the pun, they come across as a bit of a bullshitter.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether I can trust them.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the evidence?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're claiming this, they're claiming that, it's not backed up by any fact.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I could be hoodwinked on this.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see that playing out a little bit.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the things where it can cause the issue.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: And in stressful environments, if that's never recognised, sometimes that can play out differently in teams or across with patients who might want to complain.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: They might put in a complaint about a practitioner who looks totally disengaged and uncaring, you know.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So so valuable.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, but really, that practitioner might have just had a completely different personality to them.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't doing anything wrong necessarily, it's just they've been perceived in a certain way by somebody because of their clashing personalities.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So interesting, like how we don't really even think about this, we just think about how we put ourselves out there, and we just think the way we put ourselves out there is right, the way we show up is right, and that anyone that might come across, like you say, it's just their personality, they might come across a bit brash or a bit uninterested, but inside that that's not what they're thinking, or that's not how they mean to come across, that's just their personality and how you're reading it.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's somebody who's got strong red energy on a good day, they might be thinking, I've had a really good day, potentially could be perceived by somebody with a strong green energy of rude or and one person's having a great day, the other person thinks, oh, they must be having a bad day.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just the just the way they communicate with it.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so interesting.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, have you what how have you seen it play out in clinics that have done this in terms of how it's like changed the way the team works together and the culture within the team?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I the most memorable experience I had was working with a quite a large plastic surgery practice that employed about 25 employees.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: The one difficult dynamic was with one of the practice managers there and the chief receptionist, and it was the fact that both of them appeared, they didn't like each other, they didn't get each other, there was always a tension and a friction, but other employees could feel and see this, so it can blow over into all sorts of relationships.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And as you said on the previous podcasts, patients are so perceptive, they they can almost spot the body language going on, and the general rule is happy staff, happy customers.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: If they detected tension, you know, I think patients are very receptive to that.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we did this workshop whereby everybody did their profiles, and we set the scene by saying, look, at the end of the day, nobody's got the perfect personality.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Secondly, you're perfect the way you are.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is all about self-awareness and playing to your strengths and being aware of your blind spots, and feel free to be curious about other people in the team who might not communicate the same way and understand the rationale of what's driving them.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we had a really engaging workshop where they could see by certain exercises we did where they might be on the extraversion and introversion scale, whether they were thinkers or feeling feelers, or whether they were intuitive or sensory.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got all these different things playing out in your communication preference, which shows up the way you communicate.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: And because of those differences and that curiosity, when the practice manager shared her profile with the receptionist, the first reaction was one of laughter and almost amazing light relief.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now I totally understand the why the way you behave, the way you do.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: And a classic one, if I could quote this, it's nothing personal, but people take it personally.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the owner was delighted because he never told me that this issue was so strong it was causing so much tension beforehand.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I noticed that when we went to do the workshop.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because the workshop is so cleverly designed with through insights, I'm just the conduit and the facilitator.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could come up with such sophisticated ways of coaching people.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: They enjoyed the it was it was gamification, so they didn't feel like that to think too hard.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: They discovered a lot about themselves, they loved their profile because it was personal to them.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: They then got curious about their colleagues, and it was really light.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: They they almost didn't want it to end and they wanted another one.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the owner said at the end of it, do you know what?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Out of all the training we've ever done with any company, that's been far the most lasting.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I've had lots of experiences like that, and for me as a facilitator, it's great because at the end of the day, it's that human beings still have that childlike curiosity to discover.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you're doing when you're doing these workshops is you're tapping into that.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: They can be almost like a little in the nicest possible way, almost like childlike and curious on the day.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: They can pack away all their worries and they know that phones are off and we're going to be working on the business in the team environment, and then that carries through after.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, isn't it so funny how most of the issues that probably you know you probably experience within teams or even you know, relationships, whatever, could just be solved or not happen at all if you understood different personality types better.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's amazing.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I have to be careful what I say here because of confidentiality, but there's people who are close to me, let's just say friends, and uh there were two people in a relationship.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, just because of work, there was an opportunity for me to do this, I'm passionate about it.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I did them a free assessment and coaching all part of what I do, and it was really revealing that this one person, their blind spot, was when they were stressed, red energy went through the roof.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd never experienced that with this person, but with the other person, it was obvious that if there were challenges in that relationship, this is how this person would react.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think this person just wasn't aware of the triggers or but sharing that profile, even though this was done under the main objective helping this person get another job and being self-aware, and they were moving into sales, they profoundly saw the applicability for relationships as well.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's how you might react under stress, and then how you might want to dial that down and become aware of okay, if I am getting like that, how do I dial it down?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and once you're aware of it, you can work on it and improve it.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's isn't that that's the tragedy about relationships as well, that this manifests itself in relationships.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: How can like how can managers so mana managers or clinic owners listening to this, how can they adapt their management style for these different types of personalities?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so first of all, number one, we're not trying to get people to change their personality.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: You will be the person you are.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think the key thing, first of all, is the first stage is decoding.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when you've done a profile, you get more adept to this, you're able to converse with somebody, and through their body language, uh tone of voice, all that, there may be some subtle clues on how they lead a little bit more.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: So once you're able to decode them, if your preference might be a little bit opposite to them, you might want to dial down some certain colours and then dial up others to connect with them.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, let's say you're an owner who's really, really big into data, you're a little bit more on the extrovert scale, but then you're dealing with somebody who has got quite strong yellow energy.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: You might then think, Okay, well, I can't really focus too much on the detail here.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: I need to give them a big picture, I might need to get a bit more excited on my delivery, make them feel like this is a bit more passionate about what I'm saying, and they can feel that energy in your voice, which is what they're going to connect with.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that might be subtle things which you can move towards to make that stronger connection with them.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, what you do know that with certain personality profiles, there'll be certain things which drain their energy and other things which they'll get a lot of energy from.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the key thing is decoding and then adapting subtly to their style.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if you've got a culture where everybody's doing that and you're doing it for patients, how effective and empowering can that be?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Great, a great strong team communication and culture, and the patients that are coming in feel like they're being, you know, really listened to and understood and communicated with as well.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really get much better than that.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I think you know, if it comes back to the leadership piece is having a culture where every day is a learning day, so you're all about when you create a learning culture in your clinic, rather than just pay somebody a bonus at the end of the year for hitting target.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: One one important thing about self-development and staff development is they've always got to be working on themselves and having a development goal, so that can be technical, but I would say now in the age of AI, what can you be doing to be a better team player, uh better communicator, especially if you're in a service industry?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: I almost think that should be core in everybody's development.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so being curious as well is is every day, a learning day, be curious.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, people are judgmental, it's a default of human beings, but it's trying to be less judgmental, I think, at the end of the day, isn't it?
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like what you just said about team development and encouraging people to develop themselves.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are, and it's slightly off topic, but what are some key things that clinic owners could be doing to encourage or support the development of their team, you know, day to day to day or you know, once a year, you know, whatever it might be.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you know, when it when it comes to your staff, again, if you're going to build a business and you want to build a business which is sellable, your internal processes are absolutely critical and the culture you build.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to kind of build a business that, if you departed from it, it's sellable and not everything revolves around you.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: But staff engagement, the staff discipline, staff competence is absolutely critical.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that involves around.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: I always said to people, look, there's there's three sort of goal areas you need to have in any clinic.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is what are the goals of the job?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that probably might be some sort of financial goal as well, if you're in that sort of sales environment, but also your core responsibilities, what are you all responsible for?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they have to be high payoff activities.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So once you've ticked that box, the next box would be, and I see this very rarely, is to work in this environment and to be the best possible team.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: What are all the common values and behaviours we're going to support?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: And they might just be five or a maximum of seven, but you develop that with the team, and everybody's accountable to that behaviour and that attitude.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Once you start with that infrastructure, it gives you a tick and a commission to you know, permission to say to people if you observe something which isn't aligning with that, you wouldn't immediately attack somebody and say, No, I saw you and you're not doing this.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: It would be you could start coaching them.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I can come to a point last week when I saw this situation play out, you reacted like that.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: How do you see it?
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you're asking for their input, their self-analysis, their self-awareness.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're still self-aware, at that point you may need to be specific.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you're never criticizing their character, but the behaviour on that particular day might be disaligned with what you've observed.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I see this so many times with all businesses, staff get criticized.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they haven't been like this, but the one person has got really high exacting standards for some reason.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I can think of a close relative who's done very well for herself and she's moved into a position of authority now and management, and she's managing different people as well.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think she has a tendency to fall into that trap of being the solution provider, and also I see it in the small company as well.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, what are your common behaviours and values you want everybody to abide by?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you even if that is not clear and you're not feeding them on back on the on a regular basis, then no wonder you get frustrated.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you should have the values and the behaviours piece.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then ultimately, because you want everybody to always be learning, at LMI, with the organization I work with, and we've known this for 60 years, a key trait of top performers is what we call the 1% edge.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: So for anybody who's studied in the field of sport, if you studied the sky cycling team or the English rugby, professional psychologists have come into that, and what they've found is that law of continual improvement applies.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: So imagine if you adopted that process of I just want to improve 1% a day, reflecting on what could I do, which would be perhaps infantesimally small, but would make a bit of a difference, and you continue that for a year, for five years, for ten years, continual improvement, but you also apply that to people on their job.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they need training, extra training on more technical services, which they could maybe at some point become the best they can in certain clinical treatments.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: But also, I keep coming back to leadership skills.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: If everybody could be a leader, you don't need to have the title, but if everybody was invested and had good leadership skills, they would be self-sufficient, they they wouldn't be asking for permission, they would be leading through empowerment for themselves and also communication skills.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: So fundamentally, if you want to build your business where at the moment it's relying on you, you have to think strategically about that culture.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: How do I bring all that together?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And if I do that, how might that really leverage the revenues?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately, is my business at the end of the day going to be my pension?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't do that, and it you know, a Vesta will not buy your business if your business is all you, you haven't got anything to sell, is all you, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because you could walk away at any point and then the business is worth nothing.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is the key issue that most clinic owners find themselves in is how do they step back, how do they go on holiday or take a month off over summer to spend with their kids without making no money and and you know, patient their other practitioners' diaries are empty or a lot emptier.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's I mean, what are a few key things that you think just like two or three really key things pe practitioners could be doing specifically to start kind of moving towards that goal?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think you know, I think we said before if the if you are the owner and you're doing everything and everything comes through you, that's a big warning sign.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: You need to figure out how you can delegate a lot more.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things which critically have to come under your control?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that might be clinical governments and stuff like that.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: But to ask the question, what am I doing right now, which I shouldn't be doing, which other people should be doing, and also to question that if I'm gonna empower them, have I got the patience to understand that they will make mistakes?
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: And how am I helping them learn?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Am I coaching them or am I giving them the answers?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: What what is that culture?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's one that's one core core area.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's very important.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: So all to do with the the sort of the delegation.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm just gonna put a couple of dilemmas across to you, which I'd really love to get your thoughts on.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: So these are things that people have sent me, problems that they're having, experiencing with their team around this kind of self-awareness personalities topic.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this one's from a clinic owner.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a member of staff who I find really difficult to read.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: She never seems enthusiastic.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: She rarely speaks in meetings and gives one-word answers when I ask how things are going.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've started to assume she doesn't care or isn't happy here.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: She never does anything wrong, and patients really love her.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether to have a conversation about her attitude or whether I'm completely misreading the situation.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting one, isn't it?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the first thing is always going into this to be cute curious.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we're sitting down with this person and and I think bringing this up and trying to figure out what you're observing and what that really means.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: So again, coming back to our own style, this may indicate that, and again, I'm doing a huge having a huge guess here, but that person, if they're not being that vocal, could be on the introvert scale.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is the owner very much extrovert?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is the owner on their approach quite directional?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is the owner focusing on task or relationship?
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not saying this would be the case, so you need a lot more information and you know, meeting people, but it could be that this person is a really good member of staff, but responds better when they feel that the owner trusts them and cares for them and has got their best interests at heart.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't just being critiqued or judged on performance because that's going to turn them off.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Could be somebody who who doesn't like conflict, but because of that connection that maybe is not quite there, they may just be putting in the essentials but not thinking much about themselves, you know, to think about themselves and stuff like that, in terms of what could improve.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it does seem to me like the nuts of bolts of this could be that again it could be a communication preference challenge, extrovert meeting introvert, it could be that this person's red as opposed to somebody who who is led with green energy.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Again, huge assumptions.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the main thing I'd say to this person is rather going in and maybe assuming it and judging it's a competence thing or an attitude thing, it's to maybe just uh figure out what's going on, probably you know, have a really open chat with this person to say, how am I coming across to you?
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: That person might be a bit fearful that if she's less comfortable to tell the complete truth, that might be challenging.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I think your attitude as a leader is to say, Well, you know, I don't always get everything right.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: These are you know what I've observed.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, has this been a trend?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Has she got recently like that, or has she always been like it as well?
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's understanding that a little bit more.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is if she's not really saying that one-word answer, maybe she has felt like her answers or her ideas haven't been recepted before.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: She's felt judged and doesn't want to say anything because it's offended her feelings as well.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: So before diving in, I think it's a common denominator, again, with self-awareness as a leader, is always assuming that the staff might be to blame.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: But first of all, to look it's difficult, and I know how stressful it is for pra practition owners, but with leadership, have you got the highest level of self-awareness first of all?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: And are you adapting to your staff?
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: And where what could really help is if you do insights and you get profiles on your staff straight away, you're gonna know what ticks them off and how to communicate better with them, rather than just trying to take two or three years to get to know them to figure out, oh, well, when we first started here now, three years later, I know how you work.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: So so true.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like you say, if if she is giving one-wide answers and it might be because her ideas haven't been taken seriously before, or she's felt like you know they were appreciated.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: It could just be that you need to do some work with that person to help build their confidence up and do some things that are gonna make her feel good and make her feel appreciated and make her feel like she's doing a good job, and then you know, naturally she might start to open up a little bit more and be a bit more engaged.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think your point about confidence is absolutely key there.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it is a confidence issue, definitely.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other thing I keep reflecting from my LMI have the empowering mindset that your role as a leader is to uncover the untapped potential.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: If you approach that meeting with that mindset, how might that change from this person's giving short answers?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm frustrated, I'm just wondering whether I should critique her and say that's not acceptable.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's two different what's gonna get the best out.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so true.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: So uh interesting one.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is interesting, yeah.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually all we've got time for in this episode.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I'm gonna wind it down, but we will be talking more in the next episode about team building and creating a great team culture.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: But before we go, do let people know where they can find you if they want to learn more about you or the insight discovery.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, well, thank you.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, always a pleasure.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: Really enjoy these podcasts.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've got my profile up there, Marcus Haycock.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: My company is Transformational Leadership Consulting.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: So you should find me quite easily on LinkedIn.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: And with regards to insights, yeah, I'm an accredited trainer.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're interested in that, you can connect with me through through LinkedIn.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: But also, you can check out the Discovery Insights website.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: So much you can do with that as well, and you'll see some incredibly big names, international companies who use insights as well.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: The beauty of this is that it's not just the big corporations who invest in this.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: The way I work is I want to bring this kind of support to the smaller businesses.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, smaller businesses are the engine for growth of the UK, aren't they?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and where I think they probably need the support most.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: So amazing.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much again.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's been great.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Emma.